Commons Sitting of 6 February 1973

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  TRENT RIVER AUTHORITY BILL (By Order)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

  DEE AND CLWYD RIVER AUTHORITY BILL (By Order)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time tomorrow.

  GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL (By Order)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

  LANGSTONE MARINA BILL (By Order)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time tomorrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  SOCIAL SERVICES

    Cigarette Smoking
    Sir G. Nabarroasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what figures he can now adduce to demonstrate a fall in cigarette smoking during the two years since the publication of his restrictive measures, including the labelling of packets with health warnings, advertisement monitoring and other devices; if he will now take further steps including the total restriction of advertising, as in Canada and elsewhere; and whether he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): Following the fall in cigarette smoking in 1971 after publication of the Royal College of Physicians' report, there is evidence of an increase in total cigarette consumption in the first nine months of 1972. I do not yet have a figure of the number of nonsmokers in 1972. However, it has been estimated that in 1971 there were over 1 million more adult non-smokers than in 1970—that is, an increase from 44·4 per cent. to 47·2 per cent. of the adult population.
    No cigarette smoker can now claim to be unaware of the potential danger of the habit, but to help those who cannot give up I shall shortly be publishing the tar and nicotine yields of the different brands.
    Sir G. Nabarro: While applauding the zeal of my right hon. Friend, may I commend to him the example set by many other countries afflicted with the tobacco habit, namely Canada and others, where advertising of cigarettes has been banned entirely on account of the damaging influences of such advertisements? Will my right hon. Friend consider measures of this kind, which have often been suggested to him by myself and many other hon. Members?
    Sir K. Joseph: I am not convinced that a ban on advertising would reduce the consumption of cigarettes, but I hope that the publication which will shortly be occurring of tar and nicotine yields

    201
    will guide those who must smoke to less dangerous brands.
    Mr. Millie: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some weeks ago we drew to his attention the deceitful use of cigar advertising in an attempt to offset the ban on cigarette advertising? Will he look into this because it is one way of meeting the points he made in reply to the Question?
    Sir K. Joseph: I undertook to look into that question, and I owe the hon. Gentleman an answer.
    Mr. Grylls: Will my right hon. Friend look into the possibility of strengthening the warning in advertisements? We know that this is a first step but the wording is a little wishy-washy. Will my right hon. Friend go as far as is done in the United States and have it stated firmly in the advertisements that cigarette smoking is dangerous to health? That would be much more positive.
    Sir K. Joseph: But we must be absolutely certain that what is put in the advertising is impeccably true. I am not convinced that a marginal alteration in the words would persuade smokers to give up the habit.
    Mr. Pavitt: Has the Secretary of State been subjected to pressure by the Conservative Central Office on the bad image of a fuddy-duddy Government, thereby making him drag his feet? In the light of recent research, is it not nonsensical that, whereas industry is spending more than £1 million every week to promote the sale of cigarettes, the amount given by the right hon. Gentleman to the Health Education Council is in tens of thousands?
    Sir K. Joseph: The amount given to the Health Education Council for this purpose was in a few hundreds of thousands of pounds last year, but the fact is that countries which have banned cigarette advertising altogether have not shown a falling consumption of cigarettes.

    Hospital Board Headquarters, Sheffield
    Mr. Duffyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make it his policy to retain the regional hospital board headquarters in Sheffield; and if he will make a statement.
    Sir K. Joseph: In order to crystallise opinion on this matter, I informed all the health and local authorities in the region that I had formed the conclusion that the headquarters should be at Nottingham. I have received a number of representations on this view. These are being studied, together with a number of other important factors, before a final decision is reached.
    Mr. Duffy: Is the Secretary of State aware that all parties in the Yorkshire region and hon. Members on both sides of the House are completely impressed with Sheffield's case, on grounds of availability, accessibility, level of employment, nature of employment and the involvement of the university and the teaching hospital? If he is seriously considering such a move, will he now put to the House just one good reason for even considering it?
    Sir K. Joseph: A number of factors lead me to doubt the present location. The creation of a medical school at Nottingham, for instance, removes the unique distinction of Sheffield as having the only medical school in the region. In addition a medical school is to be created at Leicester. But I am being assailed from many parts of the region for the honour of having the regional headquarters. I shall take all the arguments into account before a conclusion is reached.
    Mr. Adam Butler: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the southern part of the region, in which my constituency falls, is the poorest area in the region and that the region is the poorest in comparative terms? For that reason the decision in principle is welcomed by my constituents. We hope that the administrative advantages of central location will be of benefit. Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a feeling in the country that the National Health Service is becoming increasingly remote and that to place the headquarters in the centre would help in that respect?
    Sir K. Joseph: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for showing that there are several arguments on the subject. Whatever decision is reached, however, there will be work to be done in Sheffield in connection with regional headquarters for a number of years.
    Mr. O'Malley: As the decision in principle has been taken without proper consultation, and as it arises from private pressures exerted by the vice-chancellors at Nottingham and Leicester, will the right hon. Gentleman now take into account the publicly expressed views and arguments from the elected Members of this House from all parts of the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board area?
    Sir K. Joseph: I reject the hon. Gentleman's courteously expressed imputations. In fact the subject has been in open discussion since 3rd February 1972, when I came to a decision about whether to split the region. Many local authorities have expressed conflicting views on where the regional headquarters should be.

    Poverty Wage Trap
    Mr. Meacherasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many families he estimates are currently subject to a poverty-trap surtax of at least 50 per cent.
    Sir K. Joseph: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to him on 1st February.—[Vol. 849, c. 458–9.]
    Mr. Meacher: Is the Secretary of State aware that his figures reveal that 250,000 very low paid workers are paying a poverty tax surcharge at a level which is not reached again until the middle of the surtax range, on incomes of £10,000 a year, and that about 50,000 very low paid workers are paying a tax levy of over 100 per cent., so that they lose money when their incomes rise, which makes a farce of his means test policy? Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Government's recent extension of the family income supplement entitlement period merely postpones the injustice of the poverty wage trap and that until he forgoes his means test obsessions he will not end it?
    Sir K. Joseph: It is true that, as the hon. Gentleman says, about 4 per cent. of the earning households with two parents and children are at risk of a poverty trap of over 50 per cent., in theory. I emphasise "in theory", because the hon. Gentleman's calculations rely on the instantaneous withdrawal, simultaneous with the increase of earnings, of the benefits received by a family, and that
    204
    simply does not happen. Secondly, the withdrawal of benefits is a corollary of the high benefits now available to poor families.
    Mr. Redmond: Does my right hon. Friend agree that probably the best answer to the problem is to move on to a tax credit scheme and to be sure that the sincere objections from certain women about family allowances do not hold up the scheme completely?
    Sir K. Joseph: The answer to the last part of my hon. Friend's question is "Yes". I agree with his general argument about the benefit that a tax credit scheme might give, but I should not like to leave the impression that that would automatically remove the problem connected with, for instance, free school meals.

    Abortions
    Mr. William Priceasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many abortions were carried out during 1972; and how many of them were outside the National Health Service.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Alison): The provisional number of abortions notified between 1st January and 27th December 1972 in England and Wales was 156,714. Of these 100,665 were for abortions performed outside the National Health Service.
    Mr. Price: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that some of us who supported the Abortion Act are appalled by those figures, particularly for the private sector? Is it not becoming apparent that vast fortunes are being made by some of the most unscrupulous people in the medical profession, with no regard for moral issues? Is not the time coming for us to say that abortions will either be carried out under the National Health Service or not at all?
    Mr. Alison: The Government believe that there is a place for the private sector. But some of the hon. Gentleman's points will certainly have been considered by the Lane Committee, which I hope will report in the summer.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is it not clear that those who initiated the legislation on the subject could have had no idea of

    205
    what they were about? Is my hon. Friend aware—I think he will be from an earlier supplementary question of mine—that I do not agree with him that there is a place for the private sector in this matter and that it would be far better, if the matter has to go on, to bring it under the National Health Service so that it can be more subject to his supervision and that of Parliament?
    Mr. Alison: It was precisely because of the misgivings we had about the operation of the Abortion Act that we decided to set up the Lane Committee.
    Mr. Loughlin: While the figures are very disturbing, does not the Minister agree that but for the legislation other figures involving the back-street abortionist might well have been included? Even if that is true, however, is it not opportune for the House to have another look at the whole question of abortions, particularly in the private sector? Those of us who supported the Act are disturbed by its effect. Will the hon. Gentleman look into the matter for us?
    Mr. Alison: These matters will all come before the House in the context of the report of the Lane Committee. I am certain that the aspect to which the hon. Gentleman has referred will be discussed by that committee's report and that the House will have the opportunity to discuss it fully.

    Doctors' Certificates (Charges)
    Mr. Storehouseasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will take steps to control the practice by doctors in the National Health Service of making separate cash charges for certificates written for their patients.
    Mr. Alison: The certificates which family doctors are required to provide free of charge are listed in regulations; any other certificates which patients may require are outside the scope of the National Health Service and doctors may charge fees for them.
    Mr. Stonehouse: That answer is not good enough. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a constituent of mine in Walsall, a widow earning less than £10 a week, was charged 50p by her doctor to provide a certificate confirming that she was living in a sub-standard house
    206
    for her to supply to the housing department? Is he aware that another constituent was asked for two guineas by his doctor to sign the back of a passport photograph and that a third constituent was charged four guineas for endorsing a driving certificate application? Is it not a scandal that constituents who can ill afford such charges are being—
    Mr. Ashton: Held to ransom.
    Mr. Stonehouse: I agree with my hon. Friend. Is it not a scandal that they are being held to ransom by doctors who are already very well paid? Is it also the case that the BMA has issued a schedule of charges and, therefore, seems to be condoning these excessive amounts? Will the hon. Gentleman order an inquiry by his Department into the matter?
    Mr. Alison: Doctors may charge fees for certificates to patients for their own private purposes which may lie outside the scope of the National Health Service. The BMA gives advice, though not advice binding on general practitioners and doctors, as to what they may do in this respect. At first sight, the first case that the right hon. Gentleman quoted seems as though it should have been excluded under the regulations. I should not like to commit myself. I should like to have a chance to study the points the right hon. Gentleman has made and perhaps write to him in detail.

    Private Health Services
    Dr. Summerskillasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what discussions his Department has had concerning the takeover of private wings in National Health Service hospitals by private financiers; and whether he will make a statement.
    Sir K. Joseph: I would refer the hon. Lady to my reply to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) on 23rd January.—[Vol. 849, c. 79.]
    Dr. Summerskill: That answer to my hon. Friend was extremely incomplete. Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the possible takeover by private financiers of private wards attracts scarce doctors, nurses and technicians away from the public sector of the National Health Service? Will he give a positive assurance that the Government will never agree

    207
    to such a takeover of any private wards for profit-making purposes?
    Sir K. Joseph: I entirely reject the hon. Lady's suggestion that my answer was incomplete. I was asked how many times I had met commercial companies since taking office with the purpose that the hon. Lady has in mind. My answer was to explain in full the one occasion on which I had so met anybody. There was nothing incomplete about my answer. It finished by saying, and I repeat:
    "I have no plans for handing over National Health Service facilities for development by commercial companies."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd January 1973; Vol. 849, c. 79.]
    Dr. Stuttaford: Does my right hon. Friend agree that private practice has something to offer and that it retains doctors in this country? On the other hand, American medicine is held in very grave disregard by the American patients. We want no truck with that whatsoever in this country. Private practice here is still held in fairly good regard by the medical profession and the patients. It would be a retrograde step if we had any American finance in it.
    Sir K. Joseph: I have always said, and I repeat, that private practice has a great deal to contribute to the health and benefit of the people of this country. I stand by that opinion.
    Mr. Milneasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will now make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's proposals for the future of the private bed and private patient system within the National Health Service.
    Sir K. Joseph: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) on 29th January.—[Vol. 849, c. 319.]
    Mr. Milne: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his reply does not go nearly far enough? Does he appreciate that in areas such as my own, and in South-East Northumberland in general, people are being held back from receiving attention and treatment because of the private patient system that still operates within the health service? If the health service is to mean anything at all, does he agree that there must be a steady but quick progression towards hospital and
    208
    medical treatment on the basis of need rather than of payment?
    Sir K. Joseph: I do not accept the the hon. Gentleman's appraisal, but in the presence of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) who trounced me over the weekend——
    Mrs. Renée Short: And we are waiting for a reply.
    Sir K. Joseph:—I say with some diffidence that a White Paper will be presented by me before many weeks are out expressing the Government's views about private practice and the relationship of private practice to the National Health Service.
    Mrs. Short: When are we to get the White Paper?
    Mr. Fernyhough: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that at the last election the Conservative Party talked about "one nation"? As long as many people when they are sick can buy preferential treatment, does not this mean that we are still "two nations"?
    Sir K. Joseph: The right hon. Gentleman is oversimplifying, and I think he knows it. The fact is that for urgent medical need money is not relevant——
    Mrs. Short: Yes, it is.
    Sir K. Joseph:—and in my view the availability of private practice brings substantial advantages to the whole of the people, advantages which I must justify in my answers to the Select Committee.

    Pensioners (Meat Prices)
    Mr. Eadieasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will set up an emergency working party to assess the effect of the increased price of meat on retirement pensioners.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): No, Sir, but account will of course be taken of the movement of prices in the normal annual review of pension levels.
    Mr. Eadie: Surely the hon. Gentleman must agree that evidence is piling up in the constituencies that pensioners are suffering because of the escalation

    209
    of meat prices. Indeed they went up by 40 per cent. in 14 days. Surely the hon. Gentleman is not informing the House that he will wait until October before he tries to redress the problem. Pensioners need help now.
    Mr. Dean: The hon. Gentleman will know that the annual review of benefits is now in operation and that increases in prices will be taken fully into account in the next review. Equally the House would not wish to exaggerate what has happened to the retail price index. The pension was increased by 75p in October; it has lost only 1p since that time.
    Mr. Robert C. Brown: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that with the ever-increasing price of beef and the better cuts of meat, in the North East in particular, where wage levels are generally lower than in the South East and the Midlands, it is becoming increasingly difficult for pensioners to purchase even the cheaper cuts of meat because of the resultant demand arising from the high cost of the better cuts?
    Mr. Dean: I accept that meat prices have gone up. That is perfectly true. But so has the level of pensions. The level of pensions has been increased in real value by no less than 7 per cent. since the Government came into office. For pensioners over 80 it has increased by 11 per cent.

    Death Grant
    Mr. Ewingasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he expects to announce an increase in the death grant payment.
    Mr. Dean: The death grant will be considered, along with all other claims on the resources available, when this year's review of national insurance benefits is carried out.
    Mr. Ewing: I hope that that reply means that the death grant will be increased. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I have done some research into this subject and some very interesting facts have emerged from the largest funeral undertakers in England, Scotland and Wales? Whereas in 1967 the average cost of a funeral was from £45 to £60, the average cost in 1973 is from £84 to £110. That is nearly double the 1967 figure. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will
    210
    give serious consideration to these facts when the matter is under review.
    Mr. Dean: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that all these factors will be given serious consideration before the uprating. Clearly, however, I cannot commit my right hon. Friend to what the outcome will be.
    Mr. McCrindle: When my hon. Friend reviews the death grant will he pay particular attention to those who either receive no death grant or receive a grant of only £15? As these people generally are very elderly, there is a degree of urgency. Perhaps my hon. Friend will be able to tell me that he will turn his attention to this matter when the death grant next comes under review.
    Mr. Dean: Without committing myself, I can gladly assure my hon. Friend that sympathetic consideration will be given to the point he has raised.
    Mr. O'Malley: While an increase of that type for very old people currently excluded from entitlement would be welcome, may I ask whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that when the death grant was first introduced it was set at a level to provide for the total cost of a funeral of minimum standards? Since that time the cost of funerals, as my hon. Friend has said, has escalated enormously. Therefore will the hon. Gentleman, when reviewing the level of death benefit, ensure that it is put up to a level that will meet the total cost of a funeral, as is urgently required by many poor families in 1973?
    Mr. Dean: It is very easy to make a strong case for an increase in any benefit. It is the job of the Government to allocate the priorities within the resources available. I clearly cannot say what the outcome of the uprating will be.

    Health Visitors
    Mr. Hardyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received in regard to the Briggs Report where this concerned the training, status and future description of district health visitors.
    Mr. Alison: We have received a number of representations expressing concern over these points. These will be considered along with all other comments received on the report.
    Mr. Hardy: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the very real anxiety which is felt by district health visitors about this matter? Can he offer an assurance now, or will he do so very soon, that the decisions that will be made following the Briggs Report recommendations will not give the district health visitors cause for very real disappointment or a feeling that their valuable occupation is in any way disadvantaged?
    Mr. Alison: I cannot commit myself in advance of the consultations which the Government entered into with the interested parties immediately following publication of the report. I can, however, assure the hon. Gentleman that the anxieties expressed have been received and understood and that the consultations will certainly circle around these anxieties.

    Child Care (Homeless Families)
    Miss Lestorasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what discussions he has had with local authorities regarding the inadvisability of receiving children into care as a result of homelessness as an alternative to rehousing.
    Mr. Alison: It has always been the Government's objective to prevent children being taken into care as a result of family homelessness. This policy has been emphasised in the joint working parties' reports on homelessness, on which there have recently been discussions with local authorities.
    Miss Lestor: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the latest figures given to me by the Department indicate that there are now about 3,000 children in care as a result of homelessness and that increasingly, due to various policies of the Government on housing, social services departments are being compelled to take children into care because there are no houses in which to accommodate homeless families? Will the Minister please do something about this situation quickly?
    Mr. Alison: The latest figure I have on the number of children taken into care because the family was homeless is 2,811. I am happy to say that that is a drop from the figure for the preceding year.
    Mrs. Knight: Has my hon. Friend any knowledge of the numbers of children who go into local authority care on this basis because their parents consistently
    212
    refuse to pay the rent of the accommodation they occupy?
    Mr. Alison: I cannot without notice give my hon. Friend a breakdown of the figure in that way. However, the social services departments have powers and in many cases assist families with rent problems.
    Mr. Clinton Davis: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the assertion he heard a moment ago from his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) is an appalling distortion of reality? What help do the Government propose to bring to areas such as mine in Hackney where there are tremendous problems of homelessness and where the local authority simply does not have the means to deal with this problem of children? Urgent help is needed now.
    Mr. Alison: I think the hon. Gentleman knows that we have very recently met representatives of the London Boroughs Association and the Greater London Council specifically to discuss the two working party reports. I think that encouraging progress is being made.

    Disablement Income Group
    Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received from the Disablement Income Group and if he will make a statement.
    Sir K. Joseph: I have received a number of representations regarding the group's criticisms of certain aspects of the Social Security Bill. As amendments have now been tabled by hon. Members which deal with those points, there will be opportunities for a full discussion in Standing Committee.
    Mr. Ashley: Why does not the Secretary of State admit that he is guilty of gross discrimination against 488,000 disabled housewives whom he regards as second-class members of a second-class sex, since he does not even offer a gallant excuse for neglecting them? Instead of waffling about the plight of these women, like a miser trying to explain his poverty, why does not the right hon. Gentleman say frankly whether disabled housewives will get a disability income from the present Government or whether they will have to wait for the next Administration to take office?
    Sir K. Joseph: If I were to make a political speech, as the hon. Gentleman has just done, I would assert that the present Government have done far more for the disabled than any previous Government. But since I am not making a political speech, I repeat that there will be ample opportunity in Committee for these points to be debated.
    Sir B. Rhys Williams: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the progress which has been made in helping the disabled. There is a strong body of opinion on both sides of the House in favour of doing more. Will he consider publishing a Green Paper setting out his views on the way in which DIG's principal objective, namely the introduction of a regular disablement income, might be implemented and showing the costs and technical problems involved?
    Sir K. Joseph: I remember with some trepidation that I am due to address a meeting of DIG in May.
    Mr. Alfred Morris: Is the Minister aware that many of its adherents feel that DIG has not been offered anything like meaningful consultation? Will he say what are his immediate proposals for giving a basic and assured income to the very large number of disabled housewives?
    Sir K. Joseph: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I met two representatives of DIG towards the end of last year to discuss the difficult question of priorities for the disabled. The Government are intensely aware not only of how much has been done but of how much still remains to be done for the disabled.

    Prescriptions
    Mr. Ashtonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will state as a percentage the difference in the number of prescriptions issued by general practitioners for the years 1969 and 1972.
    Mr. Alison: The estimated figure for England is an increase of 4·6 per cent.
    Mr. Ashton: Since the Conservatives have doubled the cost of prescriptions, and in view of the information in the reply that more prescriptions are being
    214
    issued, does not this mean a greater imposition on the sick?
    Mr. Alison: No greater an imposition than was the introduction of prescription charges from nil by the Labour Party.

    Disregards
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he now has to increase the level of disregards as they affect means-tested benefits.
    Mr. Harperasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give consideration to increasing the £1 disregard for pensions, paid by former employers, to retirement pensioners in receipt of supplementary benefits.
    Mr. Dean: I would refer the hon. Members to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Conway (Mr. Wyn Roberts) on 14th November last.—[Vol. 846, c. 55–6.]
    Mr. Skinner: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there have been some developments since that time, one of which is that the £ is worth less? The miners and the National Coal Board are at present discussing reasonable increases in miners' retirement pensions, and does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that if nothing is done about the £1 disregard this will mean that half the miners will have the money in their pocket and will then lose it in respect of the clawback of supplementary benefit?
    Mr. Dean: This is one aspect which has to be considered along with the annual review, because it demands additional resources. I agree that there have been changes, and one of them is that the Labour Party is not supporting the Counter-Inflation Bill.
    Mr. Harper: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if we take the £ as being worth 100p in 1966, we find that it is worth a little less than 70p and that a little arithmetic shows that it would have to be increased to £1·43 to restore its value today? Will lie act promptly to raise the level of disregards, especially for people receiving small pensions, such as the miners, who are given 50p with one hand but have it clawed back by the Government with the other hand?
    Mr. Dean: I accept the point, and it is for this reason that there is a disregard of up to £2 for those with resources on pensions and the like; but to increase these disregards means using resources which would otherwise be made available for those who have no resources to disregard.
    Mr. Kinsey: Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that, although there is great concern about means-tested benefits, there is equal concern about abuses among those who are drawing benefits? When will the report on this subject be available?
    Mr. Dean: I cannot say exactly but it will be fairly soon.

    Area Health Authorities (Lancashire)
    Mrs. Castleasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received from the Blackburn and District Hospital Management Committee about the need to increase the number of area health authorities in the new county No. 10; and what reply he has sent.
    Sir K. Joseph: I have had no such representations from the Blackburn and District Hospital Management Committee.
    Mrs. Castle: Surely the right hon. Gentleman is aware that all the hospital management committees in the new county of Lancashire area No. 10 are up in arms over the fact that this county area will have only one area health authority to cover a population of 1,300,000 people, whereas the rest of Manchester Regional Hospital Board area will have 10 area health authorities covering an area of 200,000 to 300,000 people. Does he not appreciate that even the Manchester Regional Hospital Board sees no logic in this situation? Will he amend his reorganisation proposals to give us six area authorities to parallel the district authorites in the local government proposals?
    Sir K. Joseph: The House will be able to debate this subject when the Bill comes from another place, but there will be a number of districts inside the Lancashire health authority which will have some correspondence with the existing local authorities.
    Miss Holt: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Preston and District Hospital Management Committee is equally concerned about the proposals and regards the new proposed authority as administratively unworkable?
    Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend should contemplate the availability of the district management teams, which will have a much closer relationship to the areas of district local authorities.
    Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Will my right hon. Friend realise that there is unanimity in Lancashire on this point and that the management team to which he refers is no substitute for a proper health authority, which as at present proposed is far too big?
    Sir K. Joseph: I take note of the formidable arguments being put against me, but this will inevitably come under discussion when the Bill comes from another place.

    Dentist/Patient Ratio
    Mr. James Lamondasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he has received any communication from the Oldham Executive Council regarding the patient/dentist ratio in the Oldham area.
    Mr. Alison: Yes, Sir: a letter dated 5th January 1973 enclosing for information a copy of a letter which the Chairman of the Oldham Executive Council had addressed to the Editor of the British Dental Journal.
    Mr. Lamond: Did the Minister observe that the Chairman of the Oldham Executive Council had referred to his previous answer in the House as "misleading" and "juggling with statistics"? Is it not the case that there is a serious shortage of dentists in many areas of the country? Would not the Minister be better employed in trying to do something constructive about that shortage rather than juggling with figures to conceal the true picture when an hon. Member asks a Question?
    Mr. Alison: I refute the allegation that we juggle with figures. If the hon. Gentleman will recall the earlier answer, he will note that it contained a substantive qualification. However, I accept that

    217
    there should be more general dental practitioners in service in Oldham and, indeed, throughout the country, and we should like to see this.

    Means-Tested Benefits (Advertising)
    Mr. Dormandasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the total cost, to the latest available date, of advertising means-tested benefits since 18th June 1970.
    Mr. Dean: Family income supplement campaigns in 1971 and 1972 cost £310,000 and £300,000 respectively. An additional £200,000 has been spent advertising other benefits.
    Mr. Dormand: Will the Minister confirm that that amount is greater than the amount for any other similar period? Would he agree that in spite of the vast amount being spent on advertising means-tested benefits, there is still great ignorance about them and an alarming lack of take-up? Has not the time arrived when there should be a wholesale investigation into all means-tested benefits?
    Mr. Dean: I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are taking every step we can to bring to the notice of people who might be eligible the benefits which are available. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, in making his understandable criticism about take-up, will not forget that no fewer than 100,000 families are benefiting from FIS, up to £5 a week.
    Mr. Kinsey: My hon. Friend will agree that this is a very good attempt to get the benefits to the people, but it does not seem to be quite working. Could not the professional and voluntary organisations which are working in this field be streamlined to get a better coverage of the whole field?
    Mr. Dean: I do not quite accept what my hon. Friend has said. The fact is that take-up is probably half, and maybe over half, of those eligible, and it is very much above half of those who are eligible for the larger amounts. Having said that, we intend to continue perfecting the arrangements so that we can improve take-up.
    Mr. William Price: Is the Minister aware that much of this advertising is grossly misleading?
    Mr. Dean: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not think it is. If he would care to tell me in what respect he thinks that is so, I shall gladly look at it.
    Mr. Price: I will tell the hon. Gentleman.

    Carcinoma of the Cervix
    Dr. Stuttafordasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what was the annual death-rate from carcinoma of the cervix in England and Wales for the past five years.
    Mr. Alison: The latest available annual death rate for malignant neoplasm of the cervix was 92 per million females in England and Wales in 1971.
    I will, with permission, circulate the figures for the earlier years in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Dr. Stuttaford: Does my hon. Friend agree that to a large extent these are preventable deaths and that more of them would be prevented if the Department paid more attention to medical experts and rather less attention to financial considerations when assessing the time when women should return for further checks?
    Mr. Alison: In all these matters we are closely advised by the Committee on Gynaecological Cytology, which is precisely the professional body my hon. Friend wishes to see advising us.
    Dr. Miller: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that according to the report for last year of the Medical Officer of Health for Glasgow there was not a single death from cervical cancer in Glasgow? Does he agree that that is a tribute to the services supplied by the city, and will he make such services free and available to all women in the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Alison: The figures are noteworthy for Glasgow. There is no evidence to suggest that women are in any sense prevented from coming forward when they have real need to do so.
    Dame Joan Vickers: Has there been an increase or a decrease in the number of women using this valuable service over recent years?
    Mr. Alison: There is an increase in the number taking advantage of the facilities of the service.
    Following are the figures:
    Death-rate for malignant neoplasm of the cervix per million females in England and Wales:

    Year

    1967

    …

    …

    …

    …

    99

    1968

    …

    …

    …

    …

    98

    1969

    …

    …

    …

    …

    96

    1970

    …

    …

    …

    …

    93

    Pensions (Increase)
    Mr. Strangasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will bring forward the increase in pensions due next autumn, in view of the continuing increase in food prices.
    Sir K. Joseph: No, Sir. Retirement pensions and other benefits were increased last October and the real increase of nearly 4 per cent. has by no means disappeared since then. Moreover, a special payment of £10 was made to pensioners only two months ago.
    Mr. Strang: Is the Minister aware that in the first quarter after that increase, food prices rose at an annual rate of 10 per cent.? As pensioners will have to face more increases in food prices, and as such a high proportion of the pension goes on food, surely it is intolerable that the Minister should say that no pensions will be increased until next autumn.
    Sir K. Joseph: Even for pensioners, who admittedly spend more of their income on food than other groups, the rise in food prices in no way corresponds to the rise in the cost of living.

  MINISTERIAL BROADCASTS
  Mr. Liptonasked the Prime Minister on how many occasions since 1971 he has made ministerial broadcasts in BBC radio programmes.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): I have made three ministerial broadcasts which were carried on both television and radio.
  Mr. Lipton: Does the Prime Minister recall his broadcast of 18th June 1971 in which he derided any idea of a compulsory wage freeze? How does he reconcile that with his speech last Sunday in which he said:
  "We must not make a god of the free market and private enterprise"?
  220
  Will all this tacking and yawing get him anywhere?
  The Prime Minister: I have told the House on many occasions why it was that having failed to get a voluntary agreement it was necessary at that time for the Government to introduce a statutory policy.
  Mr. Rost: Are not three honest broadcasts from the Prime Minister better value than the dozen or so to which the public were subjected by the Leader of the Opposition?
  The Prime Minister: It is true to say that up to the time of devaluation by the previous administration the then Prime Minister made nine ministerial broadcasts, but after that, until the end of his administration, he made only one.
  Mr. Ewing: Will the Prime Minister consider making one further ministerial broadcast to explain to the nation how he can be elected on one policy, completely abandon that policy and not feel it to be necessary to return to the nation to ask for a fresh mandate?
  The Prime Minister: The employers, the unions and the country know that we wish to have a voluntary policy if it can possibly be obtained. The offer has been made to employers and unions, and when they are prepared to discuss it again we shall take part with them.

  PRESIDENT NIXON (TALKS)
  Mr. Barnesasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his talks with President Nixon.
  The Prime Minister: I had extensive talks with President Nixon for two days in Washington, covering a wide range of both international issues and bilateral questions. My right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary also had valuable discussions with the Secretary of State, Mr. William Rogers. Perhaps the most important subject covered in these talks was the future relationship between Western Europe and the United States, in trade, defence and monetary questions. I also discussed with the President the next steps in Vietnam, and the international arrangements to bring peace and stability to that

  221
  country, and the East-West negotiations now in progress in Helsinki and Vienna. The House will of course understand that the details are confidential.
  Mr. Barnes: Will the Prime Minister say what assurances he sought from President Nixon on nuclear defence and why he went out of his way to drag up the spectre of the cold war in the way that he seems to have done in some of his comments? Would it not be safer for the enlarged Community to rely on some of its conventional weapons and to let the British and French deterrents wither away?
  The Prime Minister: On the last part of the question, I made clear that we have the nuclear deterrent and we intend to maintain it. Far from dragging in any spectre of the cold war, I said in Washington, in my public speech and in the interview I gave there, that we propose to play our full part in the European Security Conference and in the other conferences taking place. All that we ask is that any changes which are made should be compatible with the security of Western Europe.
  Mr. Marten: Accepting that the Common Market will have to take a common view towards the forthcoming GATT negotiations, will the Prime Minister now tell the House what presumably he told the President? What will be the purely British attitude towards the American proposals for major trade liberalisation?
  The Prime Minister: I do not think there is any difference between ourselves and our partners in the Community, because this was settled at the summit and there we agreed that our negotiating position would be formulated by 1st July. This is not a question of an attitude towards the American proposals. I am convinced that the President himself wants to see a successful world trade negotiation and will do his utmost to get the authority of Congress to carry it through.
  Mrs. Renée Short: Is the Prime Minister aware that there is very great concern about the fate of 200,000 or 300,000 political prisoners in South Vietnam? This is Amnesty International's figure. Is he aware that
  222
  President Thieu has refused to issue lists of political prisoners, that there is evidence which has been reported in the New York Times and elsewhere of people being tortured to death and that the tiger cages are being reinstated in South Vietnamese prisons? Did the Prime Minister take up these matters with President Nixon? If he did not do so this time, will he take urgent steps to make representations to him about the fate of these prisoners?
  The Prime Minister: This is one of the problems which exist in the present Vietnam situation. I have no doubt that it is one of the problems which will be discussed at the conference which is due to be called at the end of this month. I agree that it is a problem of great importance which must be dealt with.
  Miss Joan Hall: Did the Prime Minister have discussions with President Nixon about Concorde while he was over there?
  The Prime Minister: The President recognises the importance of Concorde. Indeed, the House may recall that he tried to get the necessary subventions to have a supersonic civil aircraft for the United States. The placing of orders is a matter for the commercial judgment of the airlines. They decided that they wanted to go for a form of mass air travel in wide-bodied aircraft rather than for the supersonic air travel for a smaller number of passengers who would be prepared to pay more for it. This was the judgment of the American airlines. I said that I regretted that they did not feel able to take part in the pioneer work that we are doing with Concorde.
  Mr. Jay: Did the Prime Minister assure the President that this country will support the United States in urging drastic liberalisation of the common agricultural policy of the EEC?
  The Prime Minister: The common agricultural policy is a system which the Community has and which the United States recognises. What matters in each of the systems—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that point—is that the United States protects its own agriculture just as much as the European Economic Community does. We need to get as great a supply of foodstuffs as possible on both sides of the Atlantic.

  223
  The United States is having its own problems with shortage of foodstuffs and resultant increases in prices.
  Mr. Montgomery: Will my right hon. Friend tell us about his discussion with Senator Kennedy? Will he tell us whether he made the Senator aware of the bitter resentment in this country about his attacks on British policy in Ulster?
  The Prime Minister: Senator Kennedy asked whether he could come to see me to discuss Northern Ireland. I thought it right to explain to him the position there, and at the end he said that he wished to adopt a positive attitude in public towards the problems there. I hope that this will be the case.
  Mr. Frank Allaun: Did the Prime Minister ask the President to replace our Polaris missiles with Poseidon? As this would obstruct further progress in the vital SALT negotiations, would it not be wiser instead to phase out our nuclear bases and missiles which are also making this country highly vulnerable in the event of war?
  The Prime Minister: I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman's last point. The process of maintaining the effectiveness of a British nuclear deterrent is carried on the whole time. In any developments both the United States and the British Government take account of SALT.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison: In his efforts to educate Senator Kennedy, did my right hon. Friend perhaps invite him to compare the fate of the indigenous inhabitants at the time of the plantation of Ulster with the fate of the indigenous inhabitants at the time of the plantation of Massachusetts?
  The Prime Minister: I did not draw that parallel, because it did not seem to me that it would have been conducive to our good relations or to an improvement of the situation in Northern Ireland. However, I did suggest to Senator Kennedy that he could greatly help if he followed the example of Mr. Lynch during his visit to the United States and asked that those Americans who wished to help in the situation should contribute to the Red Cross where it could be used effectively for those who are suffering rather than to other sources from which it might be diversified to the IRA.

  COUNTER-INFLATION POLICY
  Mr. Norman Lamontasked the Prime Minister what plans he has for a meeting with the TUC.
  Mr. Strangasked the Prime Minister what plans he now has to have further discussions with both sides of industry about the third phase of the Government's policy on inflation.
  The Prime Minister: I have made it clear that we are willing to continue our discussions with the TUC and the CBI, both about the code and more generally about the subsequent stage of the policy.
  Mr. Lamont: Is there not a common interest between the TUC and the Government in the achieving of a phase 3 which is as flexible as possible and in which collective bargaining has a very important part to play? Is this not likely to be made possible only with trade union co-operation in making phase 2 a success? Do not the reports from the AUEW of declining membership and dissatisfaction with Mr. Scanlon's leadership show that many trade unionists are fed up with the ostrich-like attitude adopted by the unions with no regard for the interests of the community?
  The Prime Minister: I do not wish to comment on the affairs of one trade union or its leader. I can assure my hon. Friend absolutely that there is every advantage to be gained by both the TUC and the employers in having discussions with the Government about the forthcoming stage 2 and then, as soon as they like, about stage 3. I think that as both employers and unions quite rightly, claim to have an important part to play in our national life, there is no justification for opting out of carrying on discussions with the Government when they have been offered.
  Mr. Strang: Since food prices rose at the staggering annual rate of 14 per cent. during the first two months of the freeze, may I ask the Prime Minister to reconsider his decision to make no attempt to control the price of basic foodstuffs? Is the price of bread to be increased during phase 2 or phase 3? Finally, will the Prime Minister take this opportunity of apologising to the House for the highly misleading, if not devious and

  225
  disreputable, reply that he gave to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition on 20th January when he said that a certain Press briefing on phase 3 did not take place, when he should have said that it took place on Friday, not Saturday?
  The Prime Minister: On the last point, I said that no such briefing had taken place. I was dealing with a specific point which had been raised that the policy in stage 3 was said to be tougher. I have twice explained to the House exactly the relationship between wage and price increases. The present standstill has been very effective indeed over the whole range of manufactured prices, including manufactured foodstuffs. The House is well aware of the problems of individual rising prices of foodstuffs because of the world position.
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: Has my right hon. Friend had, or does he propose to have when more immediately urgent matters have been dealt with, any discussion or consultation with the TUC about its attitude to workers' participation in a possible two-tier company structure on the assumption that such is likely to be incorporated into British law perhaps before very long?
  The Prime Minister: We have not had any specific discussion about this matter so far with the TUC. When the Chequers talks first began I suggested that they should broaden out and cover much wider questions, such as that which my right hon. and learned Friend has mentioned. I have always said to trade union leaders over the past 15 years that I believe the trade unions have a very important part to play in affecting the general running of their firms and industries, making them more efficient and improving the prospects for all who work in them. The particular proposal which my right hon. and learned Friend mentioned is one of those.
  Mr. Spearing: Is the Prime Minister aware that under phase 2 hospital ancillary workers have been offered an increase of £1·86 a week but that under phase I they would have been entitled to £2? Will he, unlike his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, tell the House why this is a fair do and why he expects co-operation with his policy?
  The Prime Minister: I confess that I am slightly mystified by the hon. Gentleman's point. I am prepared to examine any point regarding the hospital workers, but there is a complete standstill under stage 1. The £2 was the original Chequers offer. As the House knows, this was not accepted by the TUC, and since then the situation has changed. We have now got the standstill and we are moving into stage 2 in which we have worked out the figure which will best deal with inflation and at the same time take account of price increases.

  ECONOMIC AFFAIRS (PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH)
  Mr. Meacherasked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of his public speech at Plymouth on 18th January on economic matters.
  The Prime Minister: I did so on 24th January, Sir.
  Mr. Meacher: The Prime Minister has again professed a concern for fairness. Is he aware that the 47 per cent. rise in house prices last year makes an absolute mockery of his claim? Is he aware that this represents a £19,000 million gain for owner-occupiers over the same period that tenants received nothing, except being forced to pay higher rents? Is this not so much a crack in his leaky prices and incomes policy as a veritable burst main?
  The Prime Minister: I do not believe that those two situations are comparable but in any case we shall discuss that in detail later on.
  Mr. Redmond: Will my right hon. Friend repeat what he said in that speech about the arrangements for keeping phase 2 and phase 3 completely fair and particularly helpful to the lower paid?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, that is our objective. The fairness in phase 2 is that the same arrangement applies to everybody. We stated publicly from the beginning that our objective is to sort out the anomalies. Some anomalies may have arisen over the past year, but some of them are much more deeply seated and are difficult to deal with. We discussed that matter in the Chequers talks and

  227
  we recognised that we could not solve all the problems at once but that we had to do it by a system of phasing.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: How does the Prime Minister justify asking the House to pass legislation on phase 2 and beyond, setting up the machinery, when the House does not have before it the code which will be the operative law which is to be enforced by that machinery and by the courts? How does he defend the fact that law-making agencies will be set up under this legislation which will make laws enforceable in the courts but which will not even be approved by Parliament or made answerable to Parliament in any way?
  The Prime Minister: On the first question relating to the code, it is a perfectly logical position to create a structure in which these matters will be dealt with and in which the House will then have the power to deal with the code. No one has suggested that there will be one code throughout the process of the operation. Therefore, an arrangement must be devised whereby if there is a change, as there was in the United States, a further code for stage 3 can be brought into operation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment is dealing with this in Committee upstairs and the document of consultation which we have offered to present to the CBI and the TUC can also be made available to Parliament at the same time. In addition we have said that the draft code can be debated in Parliament and the substantive code will be embodied in the order which will also come before Parliament.
  Mr. Wilson: On the first question, will the Prime Minister in that case provide that Parliament can amend the code, because the code will be the operative law of the country and not merely a secondary piece of delegated legislation? Will he go into this to see whether Parliament should not have the right to amend the code?
  Secondly, will the Prime Minister say whether the very full statement, with quotations, purporting to be the consultative draft by the CBI and others and published in the Press this morning is an accurate statement of the document pre-
  228
  pared by the Government? If it is, does not the Prime Minister consider it right that Parliament should have it instead of its being available only to the Press?
  The Prime Minister: On the last point, what is happening is that the informal consultations are proceeding on the basis of the code. That is a customary procedure in government and the right hon. Gentleman will no doubt acknowledge that it is desirable so to do. As soon as these reach a stage at which the Government can put them into a consultative document, it will be offered to Parliament at the same time as it is offered to the TUC and the CBI.
  On the right hon. Gentleman's first question relating to amendment, he will realise that under our procedure the code will be amendable only if it comes forward in the form of fresh legislation every time one wishes to change the code in order to deal with a fresh phase. I do not believe that would be desirable. As for the forthcoming code, I would have thought that to have a consultative document, then to have a debate on the draft code, then to have a stage at which the Government can take note of the points which are raised on the draft code and' for them then to produce the full code for Parliament to approve was a comprehensive process.
  Mr. Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] Hon. Members on the Government side may protest but this is a fundamental constitutional issue. I put it to the Prime Minister, when he talks about what he considers desirable or undesirable, that increasingly there is legislation which sets up machinery but does not create the law which is enforced in the courts. There is the issue of these agencies making law without the control of Parliament, law which is enforceable in the courts and over which Parliament has no control.
  As for the code, which I repeat is not just a minor piece of legislation but is the law which will be enforced in the courts, will the Prime Minister consider whether it is possible to devise in the Bill a system under which the code must come before the House so that it can be amended before it becomes the law and before it is enforceable with unlimited monetary penalties in the courts?
  The Prime Minister: The agencies will operate under the code which must be approved by Parliament. Therefore, they will be acting under the law as it is laid down by Parliament both in the Statute and in the statutory instrument. The right hon. Gentleman knows that Parliament has long accepted the process of statutory instruments to implement legislation and he knows that statutory instruments are not amendable.
  Mr. Thorpe: If the Prime Minister is genuinely anxious to do something for the lower paid, will he tell us why the Government are unable to follow the very acceptable experience of many of our European counterparts and introduce guaranteed minimum earnings?
  The Prime Minister: When we discussed this issue it was accepted that it would not be possible to move in one step towards any figure which would be generally accepted as desirable for minimum earnings. In any case, the question of minimum earnings is a difficult one and we discussed the question of minimum rates. We decided therefore that the best way was to have an overall, across-the-board award and when we had further discussions with the TUC before phase 2 it, as well as the employers, asked for room for negotiation within the total sum. That was why we went for £1 per head plus 4 per cent. of the wage bill as the means of helping the lower paid and, at the same time, leaving room for negotiation within the total sum.

GENERAL RATE ACT 1967 (EXEMPTION OF CONSTANT ATTENDANCE ALLOWANCES) (AMENDMENT) BILL
3.36 p.m.
Mr. Phillip Whitehead: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to exclude payments of the constant attendance allowance from calculations of gross income when assessing eligibility for rate rebates under the General Rate Act 1967.
No doubt the House is anxious to move on to matters of moment in the wider sphere of housing. I am as anxious as are my hon. Friends to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) into the crucial debate and into pressing the motion of censure. I shall therefore detain the House for only a moment.
Mr. Russell Kerr: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Many of us are anxious to listen to what my hon. Friend is saying but are completely unable to do so because of the noise of departing hon. Members. Will you therefore ask our dear departed to be more quiet?
Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Member. I hope that his point has been noted and that hon. Members will withdraw quietly.
Mr. Whitehead: I am glad that there are so many hon. Members remaining in the Chamber and I am glad that they take a close interest in these matters.
The Bill seeks to take what many of us feel is the hardest case under present rate rebate schemes operated by local authorities under the 1967 Act and to write in a particular exemption from the calculation of gross income which the local authorities have to make. The exemption proposed is of the constant attendance allowance. I fully accept that there is a whole series of similar payments, notably disability and industrial injury payments, which are added on when gross income is calculated because the local authorities responsible for the administration of the rate rebate scheme have no discretion to vary their terms.
I also accept that the Government are turning over the idea of aligning rate

231
rebate schemes with the rent rebate proposals in the 1972 legislation to allow some discretion to the local authorities. However, the disabled cannot wait. We all know from constituency cases brought to us by the Disablement Income Group that even the basic rights secured by the Act which was piloted through the House, by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), and since extended in principle by the present Secretary of State, are desperately hard to obtain. Those who secure the attendance allowance are often seriously, or even terminally, ill. The measured pace of massive reviews of legislation by civil servants is not good enough for them.
I have a constituent with multiple sclerosis. In her first six months of receiving the attendance allowance she and her husband found their eligibility for rate rebate drastically reduced. This is not a case of flinty-hearted borough treasurers seeking to grind down people who qualify for the allowance. The treasurer has no discretion to vary the terms under which the calculation of income shall be made under the Act. The local authority must take away its share of the small amount which the State has allowed, and it is taking it away from the desperately sick. A recipient might lose as much as £35 or £40 from the £200 which has been granted after a long struggle. It is not good enough for the Secretary of State to say that his review might put the situation right in due course.
Such people are extremely disturbed to find that what the State gives with one hand the local authority is now compelled to take away with the other. I am told by some of my hon. Friends that in some cases local authorities have actually been
232
circulating recipients of constant attendance allowances to find out whether this allowance is being paid out to a third party or to a spouse, in which case it is calculated for gross income purposes.
I am not necessarily doubting the good faith of the Government in saying that they propose to reform local government finance, but we all know that schemes take a great deal of time and that other things intervene. General elections sometimes intervene and those who plan general elections do not necessarily always win them, and legislation is postponed, or even dropped. We had examples of that in the last Parliament. Meanwhile, a small group, the very needy and the sick, suffer manifest injustice. It could be righted on a time scale which could comfort all of them by the addition of a few words to the General Rate Act. In a spirit of generosity and by a few hours of parliamentary time this House could do it. It is in that spirit that I seek leave to introduce this Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Whitehead, Mr. Jack Ashley, Mr. Terry Davis, Mr. Finsberg, Mr. Jennings, Mr. Walter Johnson, Mr. Leonard, Mr. Meacher, Mr. O'Halloran, Mr. Skinner and Mr. Stallard.

GENERAL RATE ACT 1967 (EXEMPTION OF CONSTANT ATTENDANCE ALLOWANCES) (AMENDMENT) BILL
  GENERAL RATE ACT 1967 (EXEMPTION OF CONSTANT ATTENDANCE ALLOWANCES) (AMENDMENT)
  Bill to exclude payments of the constant attendance allowance from calculations of gross income when assessing eligibility for rate rebates under the General Rate Act 1967 presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 2nd March and to be printed. [Bill 62.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  [7TH ALLOTTED DAY],—considered.

  HOUSING
  Mr. Speaker: Before calling the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) to move the motion, I have to inform the House that I have selected the Government amendment, in line 1, leave out from 'House' to end and add:
  approves the measures Her Majesty's Government have taken to meet housing needs and welcomes the increasing number of housing starts for home ownership; the provision, by means of improvement grants, of a record number of modernised homes; and the encouragement of local authority housing in areas of stress; and further welcomes Her Majesty's Government's determination to increase the amount of land available for house building'.
  3.43 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Crosland: I beg to move,
  That this House censures Her Majesty's Government for its disastrous record of combining the biggest ever increase in the price of housing with the lowest rate of housing completions for a decade.
  The present Government have become notorious for the gulf between their promises and their performance, between their words and their deeds. Nowhere is this gulf more startling than in the field of housing. I will illustrate this by quoting one or two examples. The first example is the words of the previous Secretary of State for the Environment during the last General Election, on 6th June 1970:
  "If Labour got in again and house prices rose as they have risen, the average price of a new house would be £7,000 by 1975."
  The fact is that the average price of a new house, already in 1972—three years before 1975—was not £7,000 but £8,725. The second example, by the same speaker, also during the General Election, at Stevenage, on 22nd June 1970:
  "The manner in which the Labour Government has forced up the price of houses will not be forgotten by the thousands of young couples searching for a home of their own. Under Labour the average new house has risen in cost by £1,500 to the staggering figure of £5,000."
  234
  Those are the words. The fact is that under this Government the average new house has risen in price not by £1,500 in six years but by just under £2,700 in 2½ years, nearly double the rise in less than half the time and there are now many more
  "thousands of young couples searching for a home of their own"
  who will not forgive this Government for that.
  The third example is found in words from the former Minister of Housing and Construction on 6th May 1971:
  "Our aim, as I have told the House, has been to bring home ownership within the reach of people who could not previously have contemplated it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th May, 1971; Vol. 816, c. 1680.]
  The fact is that under this Government there was a price rise of 47 per cent. last year, following one of 21 per cent. the year before, which has kicked right out of the market not just those who previously could not afford to buy but also many of those who previously could afford to buy.
  My last example, once again, is the words of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor as Secretary of State, commenting on 8th November 1971, on a speech I had made in this House. Referring to myself, he said:
  "The right hon. Gentleman made only a passing reference at the end of his speech to the cost of housing and the increased cost of new houses. …. I do not blame him for making only a passing reference to it since the record of the previous Labour Government is a remarkably bad one."—OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th November, 1971; Vol. 825, c. 676.]
  The fact is that under this Government the price of the average new house rose as much in the last six months of last year as in the entire period 1965 to 1970. If our record was a remarkably bad one, I wonder how the right hon. Gentleman would describe his own record?
  Luckily for him, he has evaded the problem by skipping smartly to another Department and he is probably very glad indeed that he is not taking part in this debate today. The fact is that, as hon. Members must know, we have had a rise in prices of a degree never before seen in this country. In the South East the price of a house rose during last year by £68 a week. A £10,000 house at the beginning of the year was worth £14,700 at the end of the year. Of course, it is

  235
  not only to the South East and it is not only to new houses that this applies. In my own constituency of Grimsby—and many of my hon. Friends could duplicate this a hundred times—a backstreet terraced house with outside lavatory and no bathroom is passing hands at £3,000—a ludicrous figure for a house of that kind.
  The irony of it all is that we are told that things are getting better and that we are in for a merciful release because in the fourth quarter of last year the price rise actually slowed down to only 8 per cent. in three months—an annual rate of 32 per cent. and during a wages freeze. It is a comment indeed on the position when the Government treat this as cause for self-congratulation.
  As to rents, I shall say very little for we have debated that subject again and again in this House. I shall merely summarise the figures. In the year up to April 1972 the average council house rents, according to the latest IMTA figures, rose by just under 11 per cent. In the financial year up to this April unrebated rents will rise by 24 per cent. and rebated rents, assuming everybody takes up a rebate, by 14 per cent.; that is unless the Minister has a different figure as a result of the higher needs allowances. I doubt whether the figure could be substantially different. Following 1st April, we have another 50p on 28th April and for many a further rise in October. For private rents there will be still higher increases, often higher than will occur in the council house sector under the Housing Finance Act, and even allowing for the private rent allowance—and all this the result of deliberate Government policy.
  I turn to house building. Again, we have the same contrast between words and deeds. For words I go first to the famous Tory Conference of October 1970. How long ago it seems now, those heady, intoxicating days, those rapturous ovations, the slaughter of lame ducks, the reclamation of a demoralised Britain to a land of virility, free enterprise, self-help and, of course, no prices and incomes policy;
  "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
  But to be young was very heaven!"
  Unfortunately, this mood of exaltation overcame even the Minister of Local
  236
  Government and Development—although he is not all that young, any more than are the rest of us and he is not normally given to inspirational rhetoric. But on that occasion, no doubt trying to rise to the general standard and to evoke a standing ovation from the audience by his imagery—at once up to date and down to earth—he said:
  "We have to get both our house building industry and our planning out of that Socialist reverse gear and make it gather speed in a Conservative forward gear."
  Those were his limpid and imperishable words.
  The optimistic statements went on long after that famous conference. These are the words of the predecessor of the Secretary of State in July 1971 about the decline in house building:
  "The decline has been halted and the turn round commenced."
  In October 1971 the same right hon. Gentleman said:
  "The conditions are now ripe for a major expansion in our house building programme."
  As late as 27th April 1972 the same irrepressible humorist was at it again. He said:
  "The hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) will be pleased to know that starts in the public sector are increasing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th April, 1972; Vol. 835, c. 1797.]
  Those were the words. What again is the fact? The fact is that all those blithe statements were either deliberate deception of the House or Micawberism gone mad. The reality is the reverse, with one welcome exception which is the increase in the number of improvement grants. I am a strong supporter of that system, though it is fair to say that it stemmed largely from Labour's Act of 1969.
  Turning from that one single ray of light to the picture of new building, we find that it is totally in contrast with the statements which have been made. Completions are the lowest in total since 1963. In the council sector they are down disastrously on every single year of the Labour Government. In the private sector they are still below 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968. Starts are marginally better than they were in 1971, though they were lower in the fourth quarter than they were in the fourth quarter of 1971. They are still lower than in any year from 1964 to

  237
  1968. Council house starts are far, far lower than in every single year of the Labour Government.
  The Minister for Housing and Construction, when presented with these figures, tries to explain them away in the following manner:
  "In many areas of the country the crude shortage of housing has already been overcome."
  I agree with him. He goes on:
  "I believe that it would now be helpful to all who are interested in housing problems if the statistics highlighted progress in the areas where the need is greatest."
  Those are excellent words.
  However, the facts are that the Minister's figures show the reverse of progress in these areas. They are remarkable figures. Completions in the six stress areas which he singled out were down last year by no less than 13 per cent, while national completions dropped by only 2½ per cent. Starts nationally were up by 8½ per cent., but in these stress areas they fell by 1½ per cent. This Government's housing record is worst in those areas where the problem is greatest, and all the talk about concentrating help where it is most needed has turned out to be a total mockery.
  I hope that some of the individual figures will be referred to by my hon. Friends from different parts of the country. They are amazing. For example, on Merseyside last year completions of council houses were 31 per cent. down on the previous year. Is it true that Merseyside can do with a 31 per cent. lower level of council house building than in the year before? It is incredible. What is more, it was not made up by private starts. Total starts were down badly.
  Let us take the West Midlands as another example of an area which still has a housing problem. Completions of council houses last year in the West Midlands were 46 per cent. down on the years before. Again, this was not made good by a vast increase in the private sector. Total starts were down, as were completions.
  Let me take, finally, the most extraordinary case of all, Greater London, which has by far the worst of our housing problems. Last year completions of council houses in Greater London were 13 per cent. lower than the year before. Again,
  238
  the shortfall was not made good by the private sector. Total completions were 12 per cent. down on the year before. That was the position in this area which has the most acute housing problem in the country and one of the worst in the world. What are the prospects for next year? Starts are precisely 3½ per cent. up.
  It is an extraordinary picture against which the Government have the nerve to refer in their amendment to the encouragement that they have given to local authority housing in areas of stress. I hope that the Minister for Housing and Construction was not responsible for that phrase. I should like to think that some acolyte inserted it. If the hon. Gentleman was responsible, he will begin to lose his well-merited reputation for honesty.
  The Minister's answer to those figures is disingenuous. He disclaims any responsibility. He washes his hands of the problem. Again and again he says that the Government place no restriction on the number of houses that a local authority may build. Of course, the Government do not place a direct restriction. They do not step in to veto local authority house building. However, they place indirect restrictions upon it, and that brings me to the positive question to which I shall devote the remaining part of my speech. What should the Government do to reverse this present dreadful situation?
  I take this opportunity of apologising to the House in advance for the fact that I shall not be present for the whole of the remainder of the debate. I have a public engagement which has been heavily advertised. I should prefer not have it, but I have it, and I present my apologies to the House in advance.
  Looking ahead to the future, if we are to get council house building off the ground—and it is right on the ground at the moment—I believe that we must have action in four directions: on cost yardsticks, on the price of land, to remove the uncertainty about the future burden on the rates which is being created by the Housing Finance Act and by revaluation, and, in London especially, to end the scandal whereby the inner London boroughs cannot get the land that they need desperately in the outer London boroughs. In that connection we have

  239
  had the recent disgraceful case of Brent and Barnet.
  To get house building as a whole, to quote the Minister's words,
  "… out of reverse and into forward gear".
  I have become more and more convinced that we must take a long hard look at the construction industry. I am becoming increasingly doubtful whether it is capable of sustaining a substantially higher building programme as well as all the other demands currently made upon it. In advance of Thursday's debate when no doubt we shall once again exchange speeches, I suspect that if Maplin goes ahead there is no possibility of the construction industry in the South-East being able to cope with that and with the housing and other demands made upon it.
  The industry's leaders always put the blame on the shortage of land. This is a problem in many parts of the country and no one tries to write it off. However, in many places land is available, and the constraint on building comes from the insufficient capacity of the construction industry. I believe that a rapid and high-powered Government inquiry is needed into the construction industry to discover whether it is capable of meeting the demands made upon it; if not, why not; and if not, what structural changes are needed.
  I illustrate these restrictions by examples from two different parts of the country. They happen to be two cases where I have spoken to the chairman of the respective housing committees within the past 24 hours. In Norwich the Labour Council, anxious to build more houses, had planned 1,000 starts in 1972. It ended up with 727. It planned for 950 completions and ended with 613.
  When I spoke to Mrs. Hollis, the Chairman of the Housing Committee, who is known to many of my hon. Friends, I received the reply:
  "We are suffering from two things: first, delay in approvals by the Department, due to yardstick problems; and secondly there are very few contractors willing to take on housing contracts now that they can make far more money by using their limited labour resources to build offices."
  Another example is Hammersmith. Hammersmith is an area of desperate housing stress where the council is now running four months behind its housing pro-
  240
  gramme. I quote the Chairman of the Housing Committee, Mr. Ian Grey, who said that the difficulty is
  "Land plus the yardstick. Land is practically unavailable and costs £400,000 an acre when we can get it and tenders are now regularly 60 per cent. above the yardstick."
  It is no good the Minister saying that he places no restrictions on local authority building. Labour councils which are anxious to build are now unable to do so.
  I turn to the price of housing and I list four things which must be done if the present frightening situation is to be brought under control. First, the Government must halt the constant upward pressure on rents, both council and private rents, which is being exerted by the Housing Finance Act. How can they expect the willing co-operation of trade unions on phase 2 when on 28th April millions of tenants who have already had substantial rent increases of 50 pence last April are due for another 50 pence increase, and others will be subject to an increase next October? The Government seem to have failed totally to grasp the simple truth that rent policy cannot be divorced from price and incomes policy.
  Secondly, the Government can and should take the froth out of the market in private housing by withdrawing the clearly excessive element in State aid to the home owner and at least withdrawing tax relief on second homes and mortgages above a certain level. Thirdly, I return to the question of building societies to which I have referred before in the House. Their lending policies obviously exert a dominant, but in my view undesirable, influence on the housing market. It is not that those who run them are evil men—of course not—or even profit-making men in the conventional sense, but they react like automata to changes in the inflow of funds. Those changes are at times violent and totally unconnected with the housing situation. When they occur we have corresponding fluctuations in building society lending—violent fluctuations caused by factors quite outside the housing situation. The paradox about the building societies is that as lenders they are in the market for housing but as borrowers they are in a quite different market for savings. There is a fundamental irrationality in these two functions being connected through the building society.

  241
  I quote an example from Nationwide, the building society's bulletin, which shows that mortgage advances until 1969–70 were going up a little each year but were relatively steady. But in 1970–71 when they increased from £131 million to £187 million. In 1971–72 they increased from £187 million to £288 million. This reflects the general building society picture. This was an increase in advances in mortgage lending of 54 per cent. But during that year the number of private houses available went up by only 2½ per cent. If there is a 54 per cent. increase in mortgages and only a 2½ per cent. increase in availability of private houses this means that the price goes through the ceiling.
  This is why the favourite argument of the Minister and his predecessors, always to quote the additional number of mortgages given to borrowers, is absolutely meaningless. This is merely a way of describing why the price rose so fantastically last year. I am not optimistic about the future behaviour of house prices if the Government continue with their laissez-faire policy. The Government have one achievement to their credit. In the last few weeks they have produced a massive Stock Exchange slump. The consequence may be that frightened investors will move at a considerable rate into building society funds. We may then have another of those fluctuations and on the figures I have given there would be no increase in the number of houses but there would be a huge effect on the price of houses. That is why I return as a matter of urgency to the suggestion of a building society stabilisation fund.
  Mr. Norman Tebbit: I am following the right hon. Gentleman's argument precisely, but I think he was a little less clear than he intended to be on the number of loans as opposed to the size of individual loans. Surely the number of loans made is something which we all want to see high and that is directly related to the number of houses available. The right hon. Gentleman was making a point about the size of the loans and he appeared to confuse the two.
  Mr. Crosland: I do not think I confused them. At any rate my object is perfectly clear. It is to keep the rise in building society and mortgage lending
  242
  broadly in line with the increase in the number of houses.
  I turn to my fourth point on the price of houses—land. Land is central to the whole issue of equity and equality in our society. I repeat what I have said, that the fantastic rise in land values, creating vast unearned profits on the one hand and hardship and injustice on the other, will prove when history is written to be the major social scandal of the 1970s. It is quite clear that we cannot achieve our social aims—not only in housing but for a civilised urban environment—unless the land required for these purposes is taken into public ownership. That is what a future Labour Government will do.
  I conclude by returning to this Government. What will not be tolerated by the country is a continuance of their indolent, complacent laissez-faire passivity in the face of the present housing situation, a passivity broken only by their implacable determination to force up rents. We have had two and a half years of false promises and soothing words, appeals and exhortation. Now we must have some deeds and positive action. We must have a sufficiency of decent homes at prices which people can afford. If the Government will not provide them, then, as I quoted the former Secretary of State as saying:
  "thousands of young people searching for a home will never forgive them."
  —and nor shall we.
  4.8 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  approves the measures Her Majesty's Government have taken to meet housing needs and welcomes tine increasing number of housing starts for home ownership; the provision, by means of improvement grants, of a record number of modernised homes; and the encouragement of local authority housing in areas of stress; and further welcomes Her Majesty's Government's determination to increase the amount of land available for house building.
  I think the whole House has enjoyed the speech of the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland). It was good-humoured and full of excellent phrases but, I fear, not a very constructive speech. It is no good just putting the blame on to

  243
  the building industry. [HON. MEMBERS: "He did not."] The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues had plenty of opportunity when they were in office to put in hand what he has called, "these searching inquiries". He failed to take account, in his assessment of figures in the conurbations and elsewhere, of the building strike.
  It is no good hon. Members giving general support to strikes and then throwing up their hands in horror at the consequences in terms of production. The Opposition motion and the speech of the right hon. Member show that they have learned nothing from their failure in office to grasp the realities of housing policy, whether in relation to the building of houses, the provision of financial justice, the release of land or the renewal of outworn urban areas.
  Our debate will make sense to anyone outside the House only if it is clearly relevant to the objective we all share of providing good homes for all on fair terms, whether they buy or rent. Picking up and twisting national statistics and lumping together public and private building and forgetting to add, as is done in the Opposition motion, the effect of improvement grants in building up a stock of modern homes is just a political gimmick. We do not address ourselves to the real issues and remedies if we do that.
  Over the whole range, with the varying needs of every section of the community, it is the Government's purpose to increase the supply of good homes. That is the basis upon which all human and family life is built. The pressure of demand is an indication of rising material prosperity and expectation. The basic problem of supply and demand which is at the root of the high cost of houses and housing land can be solved only by increasing the supply of accommodation of all kinds.
  It might be generally agreed that the price of building land turns basically on the market in houses and not the other way round. At the same time, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the supply of building land turns upon planning policy and planning permissions and is crucial to the increase in the rate of house building. It is pathetic that the right hon. Gentleman should have skipped over this as quickly as he did and attacked the Housing Finance Act and the fair rents policy.
  244
  In the News of the World on Sunday he suggested that the fair rents policy was wrong because it was driving more and more council tenants on to the private market. As for the upward pressure of rents to which he referred, I would remind him that it was the Labour Government which urged local authorities to introduce rent rebate schemes which would maintain a fair balance between ratepayers and tenants. In their circular of 30th June 1967 they said:
  "This means that subsidies would not be used wholly or even mainly to keep general rent levels low. Help for those who most need it can only be given if the subsidies are in large part used to provide rebate for tenants whose means are low."
  The Labour Government talked negatively but they left it to the Conservative Government to act positively.
  Any authority which acted on the Labour Government's advice received no extra subsidy. The extra cost had to be met either by a general increase in rents or an increase in rates. We have further improved the position——
  Mr. Frank Allaun Mr. Frank Allaun (Salford, East) rose——
  Mr. Rippon: I should like to deal with the position under the new needs allowance. The right hon. Gentleman referred to this and it is fully appreciated throughout the country. What I suggest on this whole question of council rents and private rents is that our present rent rebate arrangements plus the new increase of £3·50 in the needs allowance, which helps private as well as local authority tenants, means that those in need are protected. This increase in the needs allowance will cost between £25 million and £30 million in 1973–74.
  As a result of this measure a large number of families will not be faced with a rent increase, even if their income goes up as envisaged under the new guidelines. Many people will find that they pay less rent. That is not apparent from what the right hon. Gentleman had to say.
  Mr. Allaun: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying that anyone on this side of the House ever proposed that our Government should force councils to make a profit out of their tenants? That is a new policy and it is this Government's policy. It is these higher rents which

  245
  are forcing people to look round for housing which they cannot afford to buy.
  Mr. Rippon: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman looks at that circular. The Labour Government set out what ought to be done. They said that there ought to be fair rents——
  Mr. George Cunningham: Nonsense.
  Mr. Rippon: —and that there should be a rebates policy ensuring that help went to those in the greatest need. It is worth reading. What matters is how the policy will work in practice for those in real need. At present a couple with two children and a gross income of £30 a week and a weekly rent of £4 receive a rebate of 74p. The increase in the needs allowance, if there is no increase in their rent, will mean an extra 60p in rebate. Even if their rent increases by 50p they will, with the increase in rebate, be paying 40p a week less than at present. That sort of arrangement is eminently fair and reasonable and shows how wrong are the criticisms of this fair rent policy.
  Mr. Crosland: I rise only to correct a statement of fact. The right. hon. and learned Gentleman said that the 1967 circular committed the Labour Government in some way to the principle of fair rents in the council house sector. This is not the case. That principle was explicitly rejected more than once.
  Mr. Rippon: I would not suggest that it committed the Labour Government to the principle of unfair rents. I quoted directly from the circular. The Labour Government set out what was the right policy but refused to follow it. They left it to us to do so. Insofar as local authority tenants can afford to buy their own homes, that is something to be encouraged. I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman believes that local authorities should build for sale. I hope that he will encourage Socialist-controlled authorities to sell more of those houses which they have already built.
  The right hon. Gentleman is concerned, as we all are, about the rise in house prices. He recognises, as we do, that that is brought about largely by the pressure of demand for home ownership. Our policy must reflect that demand. I
  246
  hope that the right hon. Gentleman will encourage Socialist authorities to reverse decisions not to sell council houses. I am glad that his own local authority at Grimsby has reversed a previous decision and agreed to sell council houses. That is a right policy.
  Instead of a constructive approach to home ownership what we have had today has been the usual speech from the right hon. Gentleman, a rather conventional party speech, nothing like as inspiring, if I may say so, as his article in the News of the World. Instead we have had today the publication of the Socialist Party's rather depressing and retrograde policy for the GLC election. After its quite pathetic performance when it controlled London it now either picks up and claims as its own policies which the Conservative council has introduced or else falls back on those old, outworn slogans—"No sale of council houses," "No fair rents." The Labour Party wish to municipalise all remaining private rented accommodation. What the Opposition say is, "Discourage home ownership while at the same time ensuring that the supply of private rented accommodation dries up entirely. "I do not think that is a constructive way of proceeding..
  Mr. Clinton Davis: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman think it is a constructive way to proceed for the Barnet council to refuse the tender of the Brent council to take over land in Barnet, a tender which was far higher than that offered by private enterprise? How is it that the Barnet council awarded the contract to private developers? Does the Secretary of State approve of that? Does he think that is a constructive housing policy?
  Mr. Rippon: Local authorities have a right to determine their own housing policy. [Interruption.] They have a responsibility to their ratepayers. Local authorities have power to acquire land in the areas of councils outside their own boundaries. If there is a dispute a compulsory purchase order is made and the matter comes to the Secretary of State for a decision on the merits.
  What we have to come back to is the main theme of all our policy the provision of accommodation of all kinds.
  Mr. John Fraser: Can we have an assurance that where Lambeth actually owns land in Croydon we shall have a decision by the Secretary of State which will give Lambeth council planning permission to build on land it actually owns, which has been resisted by the Croydon Conservative council?
  Mr. Rippon: There is an inquiry under way, so obviously the matter is sub judice, and that question does not help. We can only believe that hon. Members opposite want to get away from the main subject of the debate, which I think demonstrates that their policy is fundamentally wrong in principle, whereas for our part we are trying to secure the provision of accommodation of all kinds to meet varying needs. Some of these matters of dispute may have to be argued between one authority and another, and there is a proper procedure for that.
  The motion to which the right hon. Gentleman has spoken shows that there is no understanding among hon. Members opposite of the nature of the difference between public and private sector house building. Their motion lumps the two together, whereas in fact, as we all know, they serve quite different purposes. Local authorities build houses to rent to meet the particular needs of their own area. There might be a general need, although there are signs of that falling off, or special needs for old people or single persons. That is their prime responsibility. But the private builders build for sale to meet the growing demand for home ownership that cannot be met by the existing stock.
  The right hon. Gentleman makes a great deal of the fall in the number of completions in the public sector, but it does not help to meet the housing need in Salford to build more council houses in Salcombe. What matter—sand here I agree with the right hon. Gentleman—is that those local authorities which need to build more houses to rent should be free to do so and should be able to raise their programmes to match their own local needs. I appreciate that this is a real argument which the right hon. Gentleman has put forward, to which we have to address ourselves. Each local authority basically has to decide local needs; that is its job by law, and rightly so, because only it is in a position to do it.
  248
  What has happened is that many local authorities have decided that their local needs can be met with a smaller programme, or by some special arrangements. That tendency began under the last administration.
  Total public sector completions in Great Britain reached their high point in 1967 at 203,900. Since then the total has declined every year. By 1970 it was down to 180,100, by 1971 to 158,900 and last year to 122,800. This declining trend has occurred in a situation in which there is no financial obstacle to any local authority's building as many houses as it thinks it needs—although I appreciate the argument about land—because unlike the last Government we have never cut back requests from local authorities to build on capital investment grounds, nor do we hold up sewerage programmes, as they did in many parts of the country. We have created financial arrangements through which local authorities can build what they need without having, as a penalty, to increase the rents of their tenants or to put an intolerable burden on their ratepayers.
  The right hon. Gentleman dealt with the cost yardstick system introduced by the Labour Government. From time to time this has been put up by a certain percentage but the difficulty is that with a great percentage of tenders the means do not always meet the situation, so recently we have adapted the administration of cost control through the yardstick system to take account of local market conditions. I believe that basically that is the right way to proceed. As a result of taking this action, those authorities which need to build are finding their programmes running much more smoothly.
  Mr. Julius Silverman: The Minister said that the present arrangement providing for the additional market price in the local area copes with the cost yardstick situation. The experience of Birmingham, which is duplicated in many other areas, is that the additional market supplement given by the Minister is around 12 per cent. lower than the price which has to be paid on tender, which means either that they cannot accept the tender or that the ratepayers have to pay an additional 12 per cent.
  Mr. Rippon: The yardstick ought to be related to the local market conditions. I, for my part, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction are perfectly prepared to look at the whole question of how the system operates, both in general and in particular. Indeed, we have started some discussions with the local authority associations in order to deal with that situation.
  Mr. Douglas Jay: If that is the policy, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman remove the ban that his Department has placed, which is preventing the Camden Council from building council houses on a large site in Hampstead, where there is no obstacle other than his own Department's refusal?
  Mr. Rippon: One can only look at each scheme on its merits. I am only saying that the yardstick system introduced by the Labour Government does not work well because it does not take account of the local market conditions. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction wrote on 22nd January to all county borough councils in England and other authorities in the conurbations, except London, where there is already a special action group. He has asked them to let him have their assessment of the need for future council-house building and their plans for meeting it. I assure the House that we are anxious that any authority which feels the need for further new houses to rent should come forward with schemes to meet that need.
  It is clear that the need varies greatly over the country. In many places general needs may have been largely met and there may be concentration on particular problems, but we have to look at this not always in terms of some vast national problem. It is a varying problem in varying areas, and we will try to deal with the situation in each area as it exists.
  The Opposition motion also fails to mention improvements. The right hon. Gentleman did it well enough in his speech, and he is entitled to claim a measure of credit for the Labour Government for starting the scheme off on a better financial basis. We had the improvement grants for some time, but they remained relatively set for a period and now we are doing very much better
  250
  because an improvement, as we all now recognise, often brings the same benefit as building a council house. In 1972 the total number of improvement grants rose to a record of 368,000—twice as many as in 1970 and three times as many as in 1969. What matters is that full use is made of the powers which exist under the Act. The number of new or improved houses becoming available for families is now more than 200,000 a year above anything achieved before.
  If we look at the totality of the programme, therefore, there are encouraging signs. However, it seems to me that one of the more serious aspects of the housing scene is the continued decline in the private rented sector. This is not helped by silly threats about nationalisation or municipalisation of all the remaining privately rented accommodation. For my part I intend to give the maximum encouragement possible to the voluntary housing movement in order to try to bridge the serious gap which we ought to recognise as existing between owner-occupied houses on the one hand and local authority houses on the other. I believe that both the Housing Corporation and the National Building Agency can play a bigger role in dealing with the problem of the lack of suitable rented housing accommodation, especially in central urban areas.
  Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: Does the Secretary of State agree that he should apply to improvement grants in the private rented sector the regional discrimination which he is urging us to apply to the other housing statistics? Will he consider the fact that more than 55 per cent. of the improvement grants in inner London go to private landlords and developers, and that this is what causes a decline in the private rented sector? In London, are not improvement grants acting adversely on housing conditions and not beneficially?
  Mr. Rippon: We have had many discussions about the whole question of improvement grants and their distribution, but the largest proportion goes to owner-occupiers. We have always known that there is a different balance in London, and from time to time there have been allegations of abuse which we have said we will look into. We have to remember that every improvement in a unit of

  251
  accommodation creates a decent home for a family who would not otherwise have one.
  The right hon. Member for Grimsby spoke of a cottage he had heard of which had none of the proper amenities but was offered for sale for £3,000. We know that in London many properties lack amenities. Once they have been provided with a kitchen and a bathroom and a pot of yellow paint has been thrown at the door they are good houses, built to a high standard and offering decent homes for people to live in.
  Mr. Gerald Kaufman Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Ardwick) rose——
  Mr. Rippon: No, I cannot give way. I must be allowed to deal with my speech as a whole.
  There is another aspect of this problem to which the right hon. Gentleman did not refer—slum clearance. That receives no mention in the motion, but we know that it is of great importance. Great and steady progress is being made in slum clearance year by year. Last year we launched a drive with the objective that within a decade no one should be required to live in an unfit or sub-standard house. We introduced in the Housing Finance Act—which the Opposition say they will repeal in toto—a slum clearance subsidy which will meet 75 per cent. of any loss incurred by authorities on acquisition and clearance of unfit houses, irrespective of the use to which the cleared land is put. That has removed another financial disincentive to slum clearance programmes which we inherited from our predecessors.
  As part of the drive every local authority in England was asked to draw up a strategy for ridding itself of substandard housing by 1982. The response from local authorities shows that only a handful do not expect to have dealt with their existing slums by 1982.
  That is the totality of the programme we envisage: houses to rent built by local authorities where they see the need; houses for sale by local authorities, as the right hon. Member for Grimsby envisages; houses to rent in the private sector, if we can achieve it, through housing associations, voluntary movements or otherwise; improvements in existing substandard houses the building of homes
  252
  for owner-occupation. That is the programme, and speeches on housing policy which are not based on the basic premise of providing a decent home for every family at a fair price or a fair rent make no sense in modern times.
  Of course, the rise in house prices is a very serious matter and we listened with great attention to that part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech which dealt with it. It is a real problem that we have to face. The House should fully understand the underlying cause of the tendency, which is the drive for home ownership. When we took office in the summer of 1970, we found a widespread latent demand for home ownership that the Labour Government had failed to meet. That is the background to the situation today. New houses cannot just be planned and taken straight from the drawing board into occupation, so demand has risen faster than supply, and house prices have risen far faster than prices generally—I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman acknowledges that there is now some evidence of greater stability in the market—and that is simply because of the pressure of demand. It is not true to say that all young families and the less well off have been priced out of the market, as the right hon. Gentleman seemed to imply. He pushes on one side the figures of new building society mortgages granted as though they are not relevant, but of course they are relevant.
  In the first nine months of 1972 as compared with the same period of 1970 mortgages for first-time purchasers rose from 221,000 to 285,000. Mortgages for borrowers under 25 rose from 89,000 to 111,000. Mortgages for borrowers with incomes up to the average industrial wage rose from 114,000 to 147,000. Mortgages for all borrowers rose from 393,000 to 519,000. That is the story of the substantial increase in home ownership, but still the pressure remains.
  I listened with attention to what the right hon. Gentleman said about building societies. His criticisms about the way they handled affairs are not justified. They have a splendid record of service to the community, and we should acknowledge that. They are entering 1973 with confidence that they can continue to fulfil their responsibilities. At the same time, what the right hon. Gentleman says

  253
  about the need for a stable flow of mortgage funds must be accepted as a necessary part of housing policy.
  We come back again and again to the fact that there is only one sure answer to rising house prices. It is, quite simply, to build more houses, or to improve more houses, until the supply comes into balance with demand. That is the Government's policy, and it is working. In the depressed state of the private housing market which existed when we came to office, building was at a low ebb. Only 167,000 private houses in Great Britain were started in 1969 and 165,000 in 1970, the lowest since 1958—a situation over which the right hon. Gentleman presided. By 1971 the number of starts had risen to 207,000, and in 1972 to no fewer than 227,000. The 1972 figure was the third highest since the war and the highest since 1967. That upward trend will be reflected in this year's completions. It would have been more fully reflected in last year's completions but for the building strike, of which the right hon. Gentleman took no account.
  The upward trend in private house building has to be reinforced, as the right hon. Gentleman said, by a policy of making more land available for housing to stabilise land prices. Thus it was that in April last year my predecessor announced a series of special measures to secure more planning permissions for housing, to encourage land acquisition by local authorities for disposal to private builders and to get more land released by Government Departments and nationalised industries.
  Those measures have already brought a welcome response. Both in the South-East and the West Midlands planning permissions have been given for a lot more land. In the South-East in the first half of 1972 planning permissions were granted for 70 per cent. more private dwellings than in the same period of 1970. Good progress is being made with the special £80 million programme of land assembly. We have so far given local authorities provisional approval to proposals for acquiring a total of more than 1,600 acres of land at a total cost of £26 million, and schemes affecting a further 1,800 acres are being considered by them.
  254
  To give a further impetus to the £80 million programme, in response to representations by the authorities concerned, I have taken steps to facilitate the assembly of land by local authorities in the following three ways. First, the programme can apply to acquisitions which are not completed until the first half of 1974–75. Secondly, the expenditure under the programme available for non-principal roads and other services can be doubled. Thirdly, planning clearance will no longer have to be a prerequisite of loan sanction approval under the programme. We shall go ahead with the release of land for new towns and the arrangements for releasing surplus land held by Government Departments and nationalised industries, and I hope that the Nugent Report will help on this.
  Meanwhile, the consultants engaged on the London Docklands Study have identified 140 acres for interim release, and the final report of the study is now being considered. Finally, we are pressing local authorities to publish the details of land available for housing development in the next five years which they have been preparing in response to my Department's Circular 102/72. Those returns are now becoming available. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction will be visiting the planning authorities concerned in the South-East and the West Midlands to follow up any problems which these returns reveal. But I accept that more is needed to maintain a high and rising level of construction. Builders must have confidence in the availability of land.
  I intend to see that builders have this confidence, but such confidence can only be undermined by the concluding passages of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. It can only be undermined by the Opposition's proposal to nationalise all land required for urban development for the rest of the century. It is open to every conceivable sort of objection. It is systematic expropriation. It would be enormously expensive. In the south-east of England alone the cost of acquiring the 400,000 or so acres which might be required could hardly be less than £4,000 million.
  The Opposition have not said how they will do it, how the plots will be identified, and they have not given any estimates of

  255
  the bureaucracy required, but we have some experience of their past performance. They can hardly derive encouragement from the record of the Land Commission, which in three years acquired just over 3,000 acres and disposed of just under 300 acres.
  We do not need nationalisation to release sufficient land for house building. The local authorities have all the powers required in law to secure the release and assembly of land. That I think is the proper way to proceed.
  The Opposition have not offered any realistic alternative policies to those that have been pursued by the Government. Our policies are designed to deal with the real problems of housing—increasing the supply of houses, the land on which to build them, fairness between householders, meeting need where it arises, fulfilling people's desire for home ownership and giving adequate help to those who prefer to rent, whether in the public or private sector. It is the whole variety of the housing needs of our people that we seek, and intend, to meet.
  4.42 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Stewart: The Secretary of State was good enough to say that the Labour Government had failed to meet the housing problem. Let us admit that for decades now the problem of trying to house our people adequately has never properly been solved by any Government. It is an extremely difficult and complex problem.
  Let us face the plain facts. House building under the last Labour Government was substantially greater than under the previous Tory Government and, what is more alarming, substantially greater than under this Government. In the modern industrial State, even with a worse Government, sheer increase of power, wealth and skill should enable us to do better. There was not a word in the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech to explain the grim fact that in both council building and private enterprise building there has been a depressing decline compared with what we would have expected since the last Government were in power. I would not have complained so much about the decline in council building with a Tory Government in power, because that is what we
  256
  would expect. That is what they hate and always discourage.
  There is an attempt to give the idea that nowadays council building is out of date, that we live in an affluent society and have so many citizens who can afford to buy their houses. I wish people would get rid of that idea. I know that many of our fellow citizens are better off than they were a generation ago. We ought also to realise that the idea of buying a house represents a degree of affluence quite out of the reach of many of our fellow citizens. Their only possibility of a decent home is rented accommodation at a reasonable rent, and private enterprise is totally incapable of providing it. That is why the measures from one Tory Government after another in the way of discouraging council building mean that very many of our fellow citizens have no chance of a decent home. On this aspect of the matter the right hon. and learned Gentleman had nothing whatever to say.
  But what are we to make of the fact that recently the provision of homes by private enterprise to people who want to buy their own homes has also been discouraged? We had no real explanation. We know why it is. Many of our fellow citizens, more fortunate than those to whom I was recently referring but hard-working citizens who try to pull their weight in the world, are employed in the rather better-paid occupations and would like to buy their own homes. Such people could pay decidedly more than average council house rents, but now find that the gap between an ordinary council house rent and what they are asked to pay to buy their own homes is astronomic.
  Why is that? It is partly because of the profiteering in land. The right hon. and learned Gentleman tried to raise the usual bogies about nationalisation. We must place the following plain fact on record. In this country—thickly populated, and likely to be more thickly populated as time goes on—the value of an acre of land is bound to increase. That will mean in reality that the increase in value will always go by the luck of the draw to the private person who happens to be the owner at any one time. If that is so we shall never solve the housing problem at all.

  257
  If the Government want a realistic prices and incomes policy, they will never get it if they try to say to the man who works for his living, whether by hand or by brain, "You must exercise restraint", and allow the man who, by good luck, happens to own a piece of land that is in need to make massive increases in income without having done anything to enrich the country. I invite the Government to think that over. It is a question not only of the increase in price of land but of the increase in the price of a house.
  I hope the House will forgive me if I relate a personal experience here. Not much less than two years ago I moved from one house to another. I sold one and bought another. Every day I journey to Westminster I pass my old residence and I have noticed the upping and downing of the "For Sale" boards on the house. It has changed hands certainly twice, and probably three times, in rather less than two years. For two very brief periods it has actually been inhabited. Most of the time it has remained empty for the owner to hope that some day he will be able to sell it at a rather larger price. This house, which was to me an ordinary home, not very large, could be a home for a married couple. It is being treated as an instrument to make more money month after month for the person who owns it. As long as that goes on, as long as it is possible for a large number of people to treat a piece of house property not as a home but as an instrument for profit, we shall never get anywhere in trying to solve the housing problem.
  May I repeat a proposal I made in the House some months ago, that it should be made quite clear that when a person buys a house and does not propose to live in it but intends to sell it again within a comparatively short time—I am willing to argue about the period, whether of two, three or four years—first preference should be given to the local authority to buy it and use it to meet the desperate needs of those on its housing lists? I make no apology for repeating the proposal.
  Mr. Rippon: When the local authority buys the house, what happens when the person concerned tries to buy another? Most people sell their houses, as no doubt the right hon. Gentleman did, because
  258
  they want another, and, therefore, need its transfer value.
  Mr. Stewart: I sold one house and bought another because, like most of our fellow citizens, I simply want one reasonable home to live in. I do not want to use a house property as an investment. What I am saying is that if a person buys a house property and wants to sell it again in a few months he should be answerable to the local authority. He may have a good reason for doing so, and then he can shell it out. But if lie is doing it as a mere investment, the local authority should have the first chance to buy the house.
  Mr. Raymond Gower: The right hon. Gentleman has put forward an interesting theory, but would he conceive it to be a good reason for selling that the person in question wished to move to another part of the country? For example, an elderly person might wish to move from the north of England to the South Coast. Would the right hon. Gentleman conceive it a good reason if a person had to move because he had obtained another job? Are there not innumerable reasons why ordinary people from time to time have to move to other places?
  Mr. Stewart: I do not think that there are innumerable reasons. I am saying that in our present desperate housing shortage the person who buys a house and proposes not to live in it but to sell it, probably at a profit, in a very short time should spell out why he wants to do it. There may be many good reasons, but I think that to use the word "innumerable" is ridiculous. If it is plain that he is selling solely for profit, that profit should accrue to the public authority.
  Mr. Ernest G. Perry: Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that he is referring not to owner-occupiers who want to move for reasons of work or retirement but to people who acquire property as an investment, to make something out of it?
  Mr. Stewart: That is exactly the point. What damages the whole market in houses today is that, while many people want to buy a house for the plain, civilised reason of living in it, many others buy houses with no intention of living in them but in the expectation that, owing to speculation, rumours and so on, they will

  259
  be able to sell six or seven months later for a higher price. I want to remove from the housing market the man who buys property merely to make a profit and to leave in the market those who want to buy a house simply to live in it.
  When I made this suggestion some months ago, the debate was answered by the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery), who has since moved from housing to the Foreign Office. Whether that is to the general advantage of mankind must remain a matter of opinion. At any rate, he is not with us today. His comment on my proposal was that it was purely negative. I believe that it is fairly positive. It tells people plainly that there is a desperate housing shortage, and that it is not only the feckless, the difficult people, who are sometimes landed in the most desperate positions, not knowing whether they will have a roof over their head next day. It happens to solid, hard-working citizens. In this situation we cannot be too tender about the exact rights of private property. The Secretary of State has not shown in his speech the smallest understanding of the problem.
  I should like now to say something about the particular position of London. Many years ago, under a former Tory Government, Parliament passed the London Government Act. We all know that when all the flim-flam was finished the problem with which it was designed to deal was that for many years the London County Council had had a Labour majority. The purpose of the Act was to create an authority in Greater London which would have a Tory majority. The very first election for the Greater London Council turned out the wrong way, and I hope that the forthcoming election for the GLC will go the Labour way again. There was a case then for creating a housing authority to cover the whole huge conurbation of 8½ million people in Greater London. The only thing that would have made sense was to give real housing powers to the GLC.
  What is the position today? I do not believe that in Greater London as a whole there is a shortage of building land for housing. The real problem is that there is a shortage of land in Paddington, Hammersmith and Tower Hamlets. There
  260
  is not all that much of a shortage in Kingston and certain other parts of the Greater London area. But the GLC has no power to say to the more fortunate boroughs in its area "You must, either as a matter of political necessity or as a matter of compassion for your fellow citizens, find room in your considerable areas of unoccupied land for the desperately ill-housed people of Paddington, Notting Hill and other parts of London." Are the Government prepared to do anything about it? I doubt it, because the Tories on the GLC would not like it. That is an argument that will always weigh more heavily with those on the Government Front Bench than concern for their fellow citizens.
  There are three essential things to be done if we are ever to get our housing position right. One is that we must accept the public ownership of land, not only for housing reasons but for massive reasons of incomes policy and social justice.
  Mr. Idris Owen: I am interested in the right hon. Gentleman's statement that we should nationalise land. Would he care to go a little further and say how that would reduce the price for the consumer?
  Mr. Stewart: The value of land in this country is bound to go up, because we have a growing population and everybody needs more land. When we destroy a slum area and re-house people, they occupy more land. When we destroy an old school and build a decent one, it occupies more land. The demand for land is always going up. The supply cannot be increased and, therefore, the value will grow. It seems that the increased value, as it is due to the community's needs, should go to the community. If the land is in the hands of the community it is possible for the community to say, if anyone wants to hire land from the nation for a purely commercial reason—for example, a shop, a business or a hotel—that he pays the commercial price. It is also in the power of the nation, if it owns the land, that when a person uses land for a social reason—for example, for houses or schools—he pays, in effect, a subsidised price.
  I realise that these proposals would be very tiresome for the hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Idris Owen),

  261
  who believes that everybody should pay the market price whether or not the land is to be used for social purposes.
  However, we must get this right. We must get public ownership of land. I am sure that at the end of the debate somebody on the Government Front Bench will explain how undesirable and impracticable that is. Probably about 30 years later somebody else from the Government Front Bench will explain that the Government have at last realised that it is necessary. That is what happened with coalmining royalties, the railways and the coal industry.
  Second, there must be massive financial help to local councils. That means considering afresh the financial relationship between rates and taxes. The plain fact at the moment is that on the whole, not entirely, people pay taxes according to what they can afford. People pay rates which are based upon arbitrary, uncertain and old historical judgments. We must have more grants from central Government so that we all pay for the services of government, whether local or national, more according to our needs.
  Third, we must have a Government prepared to bash people who profiteer in land or in houses. There is small hope that a Conservative Government, in view of the sources of financial support which the Conservative Party enjoys, can ever do any of these things. Therefore, I have no hesitation in voting against the Government.
  5.3 p.m.
  Mr. Timothy Raison: I am not sure whether it is a compliment to an hon. Member to describe him as an elder statesman. However, it is not unreasonable to apply that description to the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Michael Stewart). I find that he normally speaks to the House as an elder statesman, and with a great deal of wisdom. I would say of his speech this afternoon that some of what he said seemed to have a good deal of merit. In particular, I sympathise with his comments about what outer London could do to help inner London.
  But some of his comments, if I may respectfully say so, fell very much below the right hon. Gentleman's usual standard. His pet scheme seems
  262
  inherently unworkable and rather foolish. The fact is that if somebody buys and sells houses for the purpose of making a profit he is already liable to pay tax on that operation. He is liable, on his second house, to pay capital gains tax. If it can be shown that he is buying and selling for the purpose of business he will he taxed accordingly.
  I have no doubt that it is very much better to tackle the problem through taxation rather than by introducing what seems to be a very difficult scheme to operate, which would involve people having to go to the local authority, producing reasonable grounds and trying to persuade the local authority to exercise its discretion.
  Mr. Charles Loughlin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Raison: Yes, rather reluctantly.
  Mr. Loughlin: Has the hon. Gentleman not been in this country for the last two years? Does not he know that the building industry and the land development industry have rooked people for hundreds of millions of pounds?
  Mr. Raison: I do not deny that they have made enormous profits. I do not feel particularly happy about that. However, I repeat that the right way to approach the matter is through the tax system. If tax changes are necessary, let us have them. The right hon. Gentleman's scheme, which was put forward for good reasons, seems to be inherently unworkable and to raise doubts on principle.
  Mr. Gower: Does my hon. Friend feel that a difficulty would be raised, if the right hon. Gentleman's scheme were adopted, if a man merely sold his house shortly after moving in because it was not a house which appealed to his wife? That might appear to be an irrelevant reason.
  Mr. Raison: It would be better if my hon. Friend put his interesting points when he is called, rather than if I were now to embark upon them.
  It seems that the Opposition's motion is in its nature grossly selective. The Opposition have said nothing about the real merits which have been brought to

  263
  the housing situation by the introduction of the national rebate and rent allowance scheme or the new structure of subsidies, which I should have thought was now accepted as being overwhelmingly beneficial. As to improvement grants, even the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) said that he welcomed this, but nothing can be seen about it in the Opposition's motion.
  We have heard a certain amount about the Housing Finance Act and its effect on the present housing situation. One of the arguments put forward is that the Housing Finance Act is helping to contribute to inflation by driving people to buy, only to find, so it is said, that they cannot afford to do so.
  My first point in answer to that is that for many people the new system of rebates and allowances will make it possible for them to remain happily in the rented sector. It seems that there can be no doubt that the recent increase in the needs allowance and the amount of help which the rebate and allowance system will bring will be substantial. It may be that for better-off council tenants home ownership will appear to be relatively more attractive. I accept that and believe it to be desirable. But even so, I cannot accept that the Act has been in operation long enough to have contributed substantially to the inflation which has taken place. It does not seem that that is an argument which can be supported by any evidence. There are many reasons why the inflation in housing prices has taken place, but I seriously doubt whether that is a major one.
  At the same time, a point which is not completely appreciated—I accept that this is at the moment unverifiable—is that the system of surpluses and subsidies is likely to help local authorities to build more houses. If a local authority is in deficit it will get the rising cost subsidy and so on. That will be a clear encouragement to local authorities, once the present uncertainties are over, to get on with the job of building houses.
  If a local authority is in surplus or, to be more precise, if it stands to be in surplus, that will act as an inducement to the authority to build more. I am not sure that that is one of the purposes of the Act, but I feel that it will be one of the
  264
  consequences of the Act. I have a strong suspicion that a local authority which looks like having to hand over 50 per cent. of its surplus to the national Government will take pretty good care to spend that money either on improving its own stock of council houses or on building more.
  It seems wholly admirable that the stock of council houses should be improved. As I go round the country—and I know from my own constituency—it appears that there are many people grumbling about their council houses. I think that, on the whole, we have a fairly good level in my constituency. Nevertheless, there are many improvements which people would like to see. One of the consequences of this provision is that we shall see improvements taking place with, if one likes, the rather base motive on the part of the councils of not letting go of what they regard as their money.
  It was interesting that the right hon. Member for Grimsby said nothing about the effect of the Housing Finance Act on council rents. His reason for avoiding this subject was that we had discussed the matter ad nauseam in the past year or so. I was a member of the Committee which considered that legislation, and I agree that we discussed the Bill at considerable length.
  Mr. Thomas Swain: I remind the hon. Gentleman that I spent more time in that Committee Room than he did, although I was not a member of the Committee. I do not remember him making any speeches at all under the instructions of his Whip because they were too busy consuming John Haig in Committee Room No. 7.
  Mr. Raison: I look forward to the day when the hon. Gentleman publishes his memoirs. I hope that he is as well paid for them as was his right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. Harold Wilson). What the hon. Gentleman says is complete nonsense.
  As I was saying, I suspect that the reason why the right hon. Member for Grimsby made so little play of the effect of the Housing Finance Act on council house rents is that the gross exaggerations of Labour propaganda on this legislation have already done a very great deal to scare people.

  265
  We do not yet have the final decisions from the rent scrutiny committees. Most local authorities are coming up with their proposals and have not yet reached the stage of going before the rent scrutiny committees, and we have not yet got the final answer. From what I can glean from local authorities, I estimate that the levels which they are putting forward will not undermine the system. Indeed, the levels which are being put forward by responsible authorities, such as those in Buckinghamshire, will give the lie to all the Labour exaggerations. That is why I suspect the right hon. Member for Grimsby kept so quiet about that subject.
  Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Did not my right hon. Friend also go on to make the point that there was a substantial increase in rents last year and that there will be increases which will be inflationary?
  Mr. Raison: Everybody knows that there were increases last year and that they will occur this year, but I must point out that the fair rents levels are likely to be well below those which some Labour Members were suggesting.
  Turning to the private sector, I accept that the escalation in prices over the last year has been alarming and horrifying. I do not think anybody could conceivably dispute that rise. However, I believe the right hon. Member for Grimsby was a little selective in his explanation of why this came about. If we are realistic, we must recognise that the Government have been engaged in an enormous reflationary operation designed to bring down unemployment. There is no doubt that the money which has been poured out—some would say wisely and some would say excessively—has contributed to the inflation in house prices.
  The right hon. Gentleman did not do sufficient justice to the desires of the Government and the community to see that mortgages are made available to as many people as possible. We only need to cast our minds back two or three years to the heyday of the Labour Government when the cry was "I cannot get a mortgage." Perhaps we have now swung to a situation when mortgages have become so easily available that this has helped to push up house prices. But it is difficult to argue that we should go back to
  266
  the days when people could not obtain mortgages. The truth is that inflation is a two-sided coin.
  Young couples, are surprisingly, still buying houses. Even last year, which could certainly be said to be an inflationary year, the figures put out for the second quarter by the Nationwide Building Society—which seems to dominate the mortgage statistics—show that a remarkably high proportion of mortgages went to people in the younger age categories. The figures also show that the proportion had increased over the years. The figures are a little puzzling. I admit that difficult problems face young people who wish to buy their own houses, and when people approach me on this subject in my constituency I fully acknowledge that there is no easy solution. But the fact is that young people are still buying houses, and we can only hope that everything possible will be done to enable them to go on doing so.
  The essence of the Government's policy is that there shall be available more housing of all sorts and that there should be more building in the private sector. What are the obstacles that stand in the way of this policy? The right hon. Member for Grimsby was right to draw attention to the importance of the construction industry, for in many areas there is undoubtedly a serious shortage of building workers. Again, the statistics are a little mystifying, because the number of vacancies in the construction industry in December amounted to 21,536, whereas the number of workers unemployed in that industry was 111,913. Therefore, according to the figures there was a large surplus of construction workers available.
  In the South East at least there is a serious shortage of skilled manpower in the construction industry. I hope that the Government, with the aid of the Department of the Environment and the Department of Employment, will start a more vigorous drive to try to improve and strengthen the training of construction workers. All the signs are that there will be a continuous demand for construction workers in the years to come.
  It was a little remiss of the right hon. Member for Grimsby not to refer to the number of bankruptcies in the construction industry and the state of demoralisation in the industry during the depths of

  267
  Labour's turn of office. In 1967–68 bankruptcies in the industry were rife and the condition of the building industry in general was low. Unfortunately, it still has not got back to the sort of level at which it should be working.
  When the right hon. Gentleman poured scorn on the notion of building Maplin and asked how people were to be found to work on the project, he might also have poured scorn on the Labour Party's Greater London Council election manifesto which envisaged a sudden release of 12,000 acres in London, as though one could start building on them tomorrow without any problem over shortage of building workers.
  We must be realistic on this topic because there is a serious bottleneck in the construction industry. Perhaps an inquiry of the sort proposed by the right hon. Gentleman is desirable, but we need to press hard for urgent action on this matter.
  Can something be done to facilitate the easier purchasing of council houses? I believe in the desirability of allowing people to purchase their own council houses because it is socially right and makes good sense, but I have to recognise that the increase in house prices has made the operation a good deal more difficult.
  Constituents have said to me "Some months ago my friend down the road bought his council house for £5,000 or £6,000, and was able to get 100 per cent. mortgage, for which he had to produce only a small deposit. Why cannot I obtain a 100 per cent. mortgage?" The answer is that during the intervening time the value of that council house has increased. Therefore, the opportunity to buy a council house with the down-payment of a very small deposit has virtually disappeared. I confess that I do not know the answer to this. I do not have a solution to the problem. But I devoutly hope that my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend who deals with this particular area will do what they can to meet this difficulty.
  Thirdly, I believe that we have to come up with some kind of decision about the extension of the green belt, whether we shall use the proposed green belt extensions as green belt or for hous-
  268
  ing. My view is that we should not be too fanatical about losing every inch of green belt or putative green belt. Green belts have fulfilled a very important function. I certainly do not want to see them abolished. On the other hand, it seems that in the pattern of living today an increasing number of people want some contact with green spaces and some chance to live away from big cities. I know that if one allows nibbling into the green belt one may slightly reduce the amenities of these places for those living there already. But, given the growth in population and people's desires, we have a clear duty not to regard every inch of green belt or putative green belt as sacrosanct. I hope that the Government will be able soon to come up with a policy on this which will, firstly, clear up the position, which is causing a great deal of concern, and secondly, accept that we can build more in that sort of area.
  My last point is about long-term policy. I believe, as do all hon. Members, that good housing is of paramount importance. I know that it is ridiculous to make priorities between the different social services, to say that one aspect is more important than another or that one area of social policy is more important than another. But when one looks at the misery and concentration of problems especially in the big city areas, one finds that housing there is the paramount need.
  I do not want, therefore, to play down the importance of good housing. I believe that overall the amount of money spent on housing by the nation should increase. On the other hand, I do not accept the objective of seeing housing generally as a social service. The philosophy on which we should work on housing is that where people can pay for their housing they should do so. The concentration of public resources should be on meeting specific needs, such as slum clearance and the housing of people who are unable to help themselves. It would be a pity to get into a situation where it is considered that the State should be paying for a large proportion of everyone's housing need.
  Also, however good council housing can be—and some of it is very good—there is about it a degree of dependence on the part of the tenant which is not desirable, unlike the desirability of the independence which private ownership confers. That is

  269
  the fundamental argument for supporting private ownership. Of course, one recognises that for as far ahead as one can imagine there will be a great need for council housing. But in so far as the Government are tipping the balance towards private ownership, that is right for social reasons and essentially for human reasons.
  Further, we have such enormous needs in other areas of social policy that on public expenditure grounds we must be prepared to say "Here we shall try to limit expenditure". The public expenditure projections show that there is an attempt to limit spending on housing. This was the substance of a great deal of the argument which took place last year. I believe that the Government are right. The public spending bonanza of the last year or two cannot continue indefinitely and we are bound to return to a more rigorous view of these things. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is my personal opinion.
  Lastly, I do not believe that any Minister of Housing, from now into eternity, will be regarded as successful. The reason for that—I say this with grief—is the famous revolution of rising expectations. People will expect higher standards in housing all the time. They will never sit back and say "We have now got a happy situation." Harold Macmillan was probably the last successful housing Minister—I put the word "successful" in inverted commas—that we shall ever have, because from now on people will say that there is always something better that they could have.
  Overall, I believe that the Government's policies make the best of sense, and I shall be very happy to support them in the Lobby this evening.
  5.24 p.m.
  Mr. Frank Allaun: We have been discussing the fall in housing completions in statistical terms. I should like to start by saying something about it in human terms.
  In the last 12 months I have spent a considerable time travelling around the country tape-recording interviews with families living in housing conditions which for millions of people are tragic. I want to quote just a few brief excerpts.
  A widow tells me:
  270
  "I have been waiting 23 years on the council housing list."
  A young family forced to live with in-laws says:
  "The friction started when the baby arrived."
  A young father says:
  "The first opening of my eyes was when the floor collapsed in the hallway. Marjory was having the first child. Every night I had literally to lift her over the hole to get her upstairs."
  A London mother says:
  "There used to be 21 of us living in this house, with one lavatory for all of us to use. Most of the time I have got to go next door to use the toilet because we cannot get inside ours. The kitchen is actually underneath the toilet. The sewage water from the toilet comes down into the cooker."
  A young married soldier home on leave says:
  "In one room 12 ft. by 14 ft. sleep my two sisters, who are 13 and 14, in one double bed. Next to that is my baby's cot and next to the baby is my wife in a single bed. There is no room between them. You have to climb over the bed to lie down."
  Finally, a Manchester doctor says:
  "Most poor people want to live in decent homes. Their ambition is not to get rich or to do anything to the detriment of their fellow creatures. For the vast majority, their ambition is to live a decent honest life, to have a reasonable kind of comfort round them for themselves and their children. It should not be too much for society to help them to do that."
  But, as things are, apparently it is too much for society to do that.
  I now come to the guts of my remarks. Naïve as it may seem, the answer to the housing problem is to build more houses. Instead we are builder fewer. The year 1972 recorded a disastrous cut-back in house completions, which fell to the lowest for a decade. But worse is to follow. They are planned to go down ever further, certainly in the public sector.
  The writing is on the wall or, rather, it is all down in print. It is all there in the Government's White Paper entitled "Public Expenditure to 1976–77", which we shall be discussing tomorrow. There is to be an annual reduction in public expenditure on housing.
  This is not me talking; this is the Government. Four years hence it will be 13 per cent. less than it is in the current year—that is, unless the Government can be forced to change their plans. It is clear that the present Government intend to slaughter the council house

  271
  building programme, and it is on council housing that most working class families depend, as they cannot afford to buy their own houses, particularly at the new exorbitant prices.
  According to the White Paper, housing subsidies are to be cut by £128 million a year by 1976. That is at current prices. Thanks to inflation, that will mean a far bigger cut in cash terms. What is left will have to cover not solely council house subsidies as hitherto but allowances to private tenants. This confirms our charge that the Housing Finance Act is not so much a redistribution of subsidies as a net reduction in them, which is a very different matter.
  We need to devote more, not less, of our resources to housing. Already we are almost at the bottom of the league table amongst industrialised nations in the proportion of the gross national product going to housing. In Britain it is 3·7 per cent. compared with 6·7 per cent. in France.
  Where should the increased resources come from?—mainly from slashing our fantastic ars expenditure. Bu tthe Government have decided to move in the diametrically opposite direction. According to the new White Paper, arms spending, far from going down 13 per cent. as for housing, is to go up 10 per cent. within four years to the enormous total of £3,304 million a year. Again, this is in real terms. Allowing for inflation at the present rate of 7·7 per cent. a year, it means, believe it or not, that by 1976 we shall be spending no less than £4,450 million a year on so-called defence in cash terms.
  I suggest that we should switch one-third of this to housing, and then we could begin to solve Britain's tragic housing problem. Even if we reduced our share of GNP devoted to military expenditure only to the average level of other NATO European Governments, we could save £600 million a year at current prices, and far more in cash terms, for though we are at the bottom of the table in the proportion of our income going to housing, we are at the top as regards the share going on arms, with the single exception of Portugal, which is deeply involved in its African wars.
  The Cabinet, in its survey of forthcoming spending, is making preparations
  272
  which will tie the hands of this Government and of the one to follow for years ahead. The Government must be forced to reverse their priorities. We need more spent on housing and less on arms.
  Two of the main causes of the soaring cost of houses are not wages and materials—they did not account for the 47 per cent. increase in house prices last year—but land and interest.
  An average plot of land in London for a single house now costs £5,000 before a brick is laid. Lord Wimborne owns 500 acres in the south. They were worth £250,000. Then planning permission for building was given. Overnight his fields turned into gold mines, and they are now estimated to be worth £26 million.
  Land speculation has become such a scandal that the Government now talk about action to deal with it. They propose to make land owners sell some of their land for which building permission has been given. But what price will those land owners get for the land which is used for building houses? They will get the market price, which everyone knows is out of control.
  There might be a marginal effect if more land came forward for sale, but it would be slight. The price might still be one hundred times the previous value as in Lord Wimborne's case. The Secretary of State talked about a figure of £4,000 million if we took over land just in the South-East; that is, if we are to make recompense at market value. That is wrong.
  The Government recently torpedoed a plan to provide reasonably priced land for couples in urgent housing need. Hitchin Rural District Council planned to sell six building plots at about £4,000 each. But the district valuer has valued each plot at between £8,500 and £9,500, and the Department of the Environment has stated that it stands by the district valuer's valuation.
  Therefore, I am convinced that the only solution is the public ownership of land, excluding owner-occupied houses. The basis of value should be its previous use value—that is, as agricultural land or deserted dock land—and then these fantastic figures which were trotted out this afternoon would not arise.
  Turning now to the interest burden—I have checked these figures with a borough

  273
  treasurer—I take as an example an average council house costing £6,500 to build, including the land. That is a moderate price today. How much will that house cost by the time interest has been paid at the current rate for the next 60 years, which is the usual borrowing term? A single council house will cost £39,120, of which all but £6,500 is interest. The 10 per cent. rate that I have taken is the current rate of the Public Works Loans Board for loans of more than 25 years. In weekly terms it will cost £1254, or, allowing 50p for repairs and a couple of pounds for rates, £15 a week for a council house. Yet, when the Government build a battleship or a motorway—I am not bursting with enthusiasm for either—they do not pay a penny in interest. They do not borrow the money. They pay cash out of annual revenue. Why should that not be done with housing, thus avoiding the six-fold increase in costs?
  Lastly, I turn to the effect on housing of gigantic road building schemes. A 22 per cent. increase in spending on roads is planned for 1976. The Government are to spend £4,300 million on major roads in the next four years. Much of this will be at the expense of housing.
  It is pleasant to travel by motorway to the more attractive parts of this country, but motorways require feeder roads into the centres of our towns and cities. To build them, wide swathes are being cut through built-up areas. These roads will demand more land and the destruction of more houses. This is taking place in most towns and cities. The centres of Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, for example, are being ripped apart.
  One short road—one of many in Salford—will cost the city the demolition of 3,000 houses, half of them slums but the other half good houses which we cannot afford to lose. This is for only a small part of the road building planned for the city.
  It is a process which must be resisted. Houses should come before roads, and much of the traffic, particularly the heavy goods traffic, should return to the railways. This is another case where the Government are moving in the wrong direction, planning for no less than a 27 per cent. reduction in surface transport in the next four years largely at the
  274
  expense of the railways. For this and other reasons tonight's censure motion should be supported.
  5.40 p.m.
  Mr. S. James A. Hill: There is a great similarity between this debate and several others which I have heard in the short time that I have been in the House. We seem to go along the same old tracks with very little originality and with no fresh ideas. I am sure that the Minister is waiting for a gem of an idea from the Opposition, not on how they will deal with the problem when they are back in power but how they will assist with the problem now.
  We are all aware of the three main reasons for the increase in house prices. I am sure that those who have studied the problem will put land at the top of their list. After that I put materials and then labour. Linked with these three main priorities is the increased demand and financial liquidity. All this has come together to create a great demand not only among those who wish to leave council estates to move into the private sector but also among those who wish to move to other areas, and certainly for those who wish to retire.
  The problem associated with land is obviously the lack of planning releases. Perhaps we are all to blame for that. Local authorities do not get the necessary inducement from national government. Possibly we Members of Parliament do not press hard enough for the release of land. We are sufficiently disciplined to stand back and wait for the infrastructure plans to come to fruition after their commencement and after the inspection of the area. In the past—and I suppose both Governments are to blame—we have spent little or nothing on servicing the land around our cities. We have certainly spent very little on providing adequate sewerage. Untreated sewage is now going into the sea around the Isle of Wight.
  It is not a question of who is right or wrong but of how we can correct some of the deficiencies of the past. We are faced with the problem of environmental protection. We all know of these difficulties encountered by people who want houses, yet residents in particular areas do not want new estates to be

  275
  built near them. On Saturday a person came to see me to protest that a window in a house that was being built would overlook her bungalow. Those are the sort of things which prevent further expansion of the housing programme. The planning authorities take every precaution and are statutorily required to advise every tenant or resident in the area of any possible development. But while that is happening there is stagnation.
  Two of my hon. Friends and myself would like to see the establishment of a commissioner—I would call him the Land Monitoring Commissioner—who could go from county to county searching out the bottlenecks in housing provision. There is a large degree of suspicion about planning authorities. There are county planning officers who quote figures of land availability but when it comes down to the "nitty-gritty" of inspection, plot by plot, the figures do not stand up.
  Most of us know of the survey carried out in North Cheshire. The county planning department said that 1,100 acres of land were available for immediate development. It sounded very hopeful. By building 10 houses to the acre a large number of families could be housed in the near future. On close inspection, however, it was found that only 374 acres were available and of that 21 per cent. was held by public bodies, 68 per cent. by developers and only the remaining 11 per cent. was in private ownership. I cannot understand how a local authority can be so out of date. The Report said:
  "Land available for development but access difficulties over private road.
  Land not available for building—covenanted for open space with adjacent residents."
  Some of the land had been developed as much as 10 years previously. Those are the sort of things that make me wonder whether any county planning officer has enough information to deal with his own planning responsibilities. That is why I believe that a Land Monitoring Commissioner could prove extremely useful. He could take a learn, not necessarily a large one, and sit in with the planning department in a consultative capacity. Together they could thrash out the difficulties created by local bottlenecks.
  276
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State is naïve about the circulars he sends out. Perhaps they are directives, but they are sometimes completely ignored by local authorities. I may be wrong, but I believe that the circular he sent out only last year requiring local authorities to give details of available land, has not received a great response from those to whom it was sent. Often the county planning officer does not have sufficient knowledge about land availability and I am sure that a lot of local authorities do not know how much land they own. In Southampton when the Conservatives took control it took us almost two years to get a detailed list of the land that had been purchased over the last 20 years by the previous council. That, therefore, may be one of the real obstructions to getting a land release programme under way.
  Materials have become easier to obtain. The cynics among us will say that that is not difficult to understand. I hope that manufacturers, particularly brick manufacturers, will step up their production. The great danger is that after inspiring them with confidence and after they have built up their work force to produce bricks and tiles, Government policy turns from hot to cold and they once again lose heart and turn to other products. One of the important things said by the chairman of the Standing Conference on London and the South-East Regional Planning was
  "In passing, I think I should make the point that these very high prices for land for development are not primarily the result of machinations of speculators. They are the direct result of our national planning policy of restricting land for development in order to conserve the open spaces as areas of great amenity and recreational value, which we all want. This is, indeed, the price of conservation and we must keep that perspective firmly in our minds."
  It has been mentioned earlier, and it is worth repeating, that although the green belt may be an admirable concept many villages are dying because they are situated in it. I know of many farmers who wish to obtain planning permission for a farmworker's cottage or bungalow but who constantly come up against the stone wall of green belt policy. My right hon. Friend would do well to look at this. We all want green belt but we do not want a policy so inflexible that it really has the reverse effect of killing villages and those that have accepted the

  277
  right to live in a green belt for many generations past.
  On the labour problem, already mentioned, one thing that has perhaps created some price increase is that at long last a certain amount of tax is being extracted from subcontractors. This is very worth while and by it the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made a very progressive move; but it has meant that their estimates, whether for roads, sewers or concrete paths, have moved up progressively. This may indicate why, in the council house sector alone, the housing cost yardstick is perhaps more and more difficult to meet.
  Over the years there has been a lack of incentive for employers and tradesmen to take on apprentices. We have seen how this has gradually led to there being less fresh new blood coming in. There must he a great deal of liaison between the building industry and the Government. I have today had a paper from the National Federation of Building Trade Employers telling me that the number of plastering apprentices has risen substantially. Personally, I feel that a 72 per cent. increase compared with last year is something which we can be pleased. This is where the main labour problem lies, the fact that youngsters are not coming on. There is, of course, a tendency for everyone to keep skills and trades to the yardsticks of the past, but I feel that the building industry is once again trying to match up to this situation.
  I have here a paper on education and training within the building industry which says:
  "The critical shortage of skilled craftsmen in the industry has brought about pressures for an examination of the possibilities of shortening the period of training and introducing training for limited skills."
  I believe this is right. The paper goes on to say there is a working party examining this and that an interim report is due out early in 1973. I am sure every practising builder will know that it does not take five or six years to train a bricklayer, a plasterer, or even a carpenter. These are the kind of skills which in normal housebuilding can be readily acquired and I would have thought that the training time could be halved if not reduced still further, so that there are more of these skilled operatives in the building industry.
  278
  The working party bringing out this interim report must work closely with the Government educational training schemes and we have to see how they can best be integrated into the industry's joint training schemes. Here, again, there is a move to educate the labour force to meet the job. When these craftsmen eventually get employed by the building industry they will have what is a well paid and worthwhile job these days and they will have skills which will be with them all their lives.
  One my last point—taxation—there is a tendency to think—and I am sure this is more than a thought—that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the next Budget will bring forward some capital gains tax on land speculation. I am sure a majority of us here would think this was right. But I hope it is a measure which he has thought through most clearly, because it may be detrimental to the housing programme. It would be very wrong if the would-be house purchasers of 1974, 1975, and 1976 were to be paying for any Budget announcement of 1973. At the same time, we do not want to drive underground landowners or other people who could get planning permission. We really want to keep them in the open, where they are releasing their land so that young families are able to enjoy the comfort of a home.
  I am sure that with those few words I have not added any new ideas to those of my right hon. and learned Friend, because I know he is on the ball in this situation, which is exercising the mind of all of us on this side of the House. But whatever is done in the future I am certain that we shall beat the Labour housing record of the past.
  5.46 p.m.
  Mr. Thomas Swain: This debate, as my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) has said, has been centred round a lot of statistics with cut and thrust between the two parties, each blaming the other, like the old Norman Evan's "Over the Garden Wall" discussions. Housing is a subject which should not be made a question of looking at statistics and examining tiny figures. It should be a question of action. Before going any further I want to put the Secretary of

  279
  State right. If I had to complete that task it would take me from now until the next election. He mentioned in a very critical way the circular that went out from the Labour Government during its period of office, on 19th June 1967. I wish to heaven he had read it today and had brought his mind up to date on it before mentioning it.
  The whole circular deals with rent rebate schemes, but its major paragraphs are paragraphs 1 and 2 and in those paragraphs the words "freedom" and "free" are used extensively. This circular went out to local authorities from the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Welsh Office at Cathays Park, Cardiff. It said:
  "Sir, we are directed by the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Secretary of State for Wales to say that following discussions with the Local Authority Associations they have decided to issue fresh guidance to housing authorities on rent rebates. This circular replaces Circular No. 29/56/2. Local authorities are wholly responsible for deciding the rents of the houses they own and for deciding how those houses should be adjusted to the means of individual tenants. They are also responsible for ensuring that the rents are reasonable. They are free to decide whether or not to make a contribution from the rate fund to the housing revenue account, but they have to maintain a fair balance between ratepayers and tenants."
  That is the paragraph the Secretary of State saw fit to criticise. I would suggest that the Housing Finance Act passed last year completely takes away the freedom of local authorities to exercise the very things that are expounded in this particular paragraph. As a consequence of taking away that freedom from local authorities we are now beginning to feel the pinch of the Housing Finance Act in its effect on local authority houses.
  I now accuse this Government, as I have accused them hundreds of times before. They have a vendetta against council house tenants.
  Mr. Gower indicated dissent.
  Mr. Swain: The hon. Gentleman can shake his head, but he does not live in one. It is Tory philosophy to have a vendetta against council house tenants, otherwise they would not have gone along with the Housing Finance Act. They would have found other means.
  280
  Immediately after the war, following the suspension of house building for six years, we had a scheme of borrowing powers and loan sanctions. Housing was priority number one. It is no longer a priority in the minds of the Tory Government. The claims of defence, and so on, have taken over. In the course of the education debate last week the Secretary of State boasted that the education bill was higher than the defence bill. Why is not the Secretary of State for the Environment boasting that housing investment is higher than the defence bill? I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East destroyed completely the fallacious argument which the Minister for Housing and Construction saw fit to use.
  For more than 20 years I had the honour to serve on a local authority which immediately after the war had the difficult task of providing housing. I saw significant changes. I saw the administration of good Socialist policies and priorities. I saw what we as a local authority could do with Government aid. Covering the whole of the gap between then and the present day I can see what we cannot do as local authorities because of the inhibitions placed upon us by this Conservative Government.
  One of the main reasons why local authorities are not able to build houses is that during the past year most of the time of local authority officers and elected representatives has been absorbed by the need to concentrate on the provisions of the Housing Finance Act.
  I shall come to the centre of Europe in a moment or two. A few years ago when Lord George-Brown was in this House Swadlincote was the centre of Europe. That has changed. Today Clay Cross is the centre of Europe. I hope to deal with that effectively later in my speech.
  The record of this Tory Government on housing in 1972 was abominable. It will be the same in 1973. They are making no attempt to ease the housing situation. They talk about speculation. Let me give the House my own experience. I have just built a bungalow. It is a very nice bungalow by my standards. On 16th April last year I was due to sign the conveyances for the land. However, on 8th April a gentleman knocked at my door

  281
  at No. 3 Markham Crescent, Staveley. He said, "Whatever you have given for that land I am willing to double tomorrow, and I will give you a cheque for it." I asked him, "If I do, do you intend to build a house for your own use?". He replied, "No. I shall be building two houses to sell." I paid the valuer's price for the land. I did not get it from Mr. Poulson. I paid the price that the valuer demanded because I considered it to be worth it and above all because I needed the land in order to build a house—
  Mr. S. James A. Hill: The hon. Gentleman wanted his own house.
  Mr. Swain: Yes, and I got it.
  Still on the subject of speculation, 12 months ago a young friend of mine who lives only 1½ miles away from me agreed a price of £4,500 to have a bungalow built. It was as low as that because the land surrounding the bungalow was very limited. My friend is due to move into that property on Saturday of this week. However, on Friday morning of last week a person told him that he would give him £8,000 for the bungalow if he would sell the following day. My friend asked the man whether he wanted it for his own use. The reply was, "No. I have a customer for it." In fact, he had already reserved space in the papers to advertise so that he could get his price.
  That is the kind of speculation that is going on under the robbers who form this Government. They talk about a fair deal in housing. There ain't no such things as a fair deal in housing under this Government!
  I come now to the new centre of Europe—Clay Cross. This is a very interesting subject. If I am ruled out of order for not speaking to the motion I shall claim that I am speaking against the Government amendment, which goes a lot wider than the motion. I must warn the House that I believe that I am in order.
  In Clay Cross the local authority kept building houses so that it could clear its slum areas. It continued to build right through the period of the house building slump. The authority was determined to clear away its slums and it made great sacrifices to do it. Much to its credit, it maintained rent levels which people could
  282
  afford to pay when it let its houses. In Yorkshire, Conisbrough council did the same. Today it has cleared 96 per cent. of its slum areas. They were slums created by the industrialists of old—the coal owners—who left a heritage to Clay Cross and to other mining areas which have to be seen to be believed. We who live in and represent mining areas have problems which are different from those of other areas in Great Britain. The land acreage available to us is reduced because we suffer severely from mining subsidence. Any local authority in a mining area which continues to build houses in order to get shot of its slums has a great deal of credit to it.
  At one time, I grumbled at the Clay Cross authority for carrying out Tory policy and trying to control inflation by keeping down rent levels. Then it refused point blank to implement the Housing Finance Act. Its councillors have now been proceeded against by the Minister for Housing and Construction. He may claim innocence, but he cannot be innocent. The same action has been taken in respect of Conisbrough, two councils in Wales, and four in Scotland. I shall deal with them in a moment.
  The Clay Cross councillors are being made the victims of the vicious, vindictive attitude of this Government who intend to chop off the head of every councillor in Clay Cross. I shall tell the House why. Section 95(7) of the Housing Finance Act states categorically that the Minister has power to appoint a housing commissioner to carry out the invidious duty of controlling a housing authority in the event of a default order being made against it. The Minister and his twister colleagues have proceeded under the Local Government Act 1933, the penalties under which are a hundred times more severe than those under the Housing Finance Act 1972. The sanctions under the 1933 Act are murderous by comparison with the 1972 Act. The Minister for Housing and Construction sits on the Treasury Bench with a bland look, knowing full well that what I say is true.
  In England the Government have proceeded under the Local Government Act 1933 in order to get their pound of flesh. In Wales they have proceeded under the Housing Finance Act 1972. In Scotland they have proceeded under Section 72 of the Housing (Financial Provisions)

  283
  (Scotland) Act. At Conisbrough they went behind everyone's back and conducted an extraordinary audit under Section 237 of the Local Government Act. Then they invited the councillors to meet the Minister and his henchmen to have a talk with them. Why has the Minister not invited Clay Cross councillors to a talk on the same basis?
  This is what is happening to housing in my part of the world. I am thoroughly disgusted with the actions of this Minister and his colleagues. They are acting in four different ways to get their Shylock's pound of flesh from people who have refused to carry out the Act in England, Scotland and Wales. This is the filthy way in which the Government have proceeded to obtain their pound of flesh. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Edwin Wainwright) will be successful in catching Mr. Speaker's eye later in the debate. In his constituency there is a dead mining area. There is a dead mining area in Clay Cross. There were 17 pits within five miles of Clay Cross only 15 years ago. Today, there is not one pit within eight miles of Clay Cross. We have 16·5 per cent. unemployment in the male population. We have an average unemployment rate of 13·5 per cent. I suggest that it is the highest in the country. The ratio of applicants to vacancies is 21·7 per cent. in the Clay Cross exchange area. We cannot operate a reasonable fair rent scheme as expounded in the circular issued in 1967 because of the dogma of the Minister.
  The Housing Finance Bill was in Committee for five-and-a-half months. The Government inflicted the guillotine on the Committee and put the guillotine on the Report stage in the House. The Government said that the Housing Finance Act would be the salvation of local authority housing, but the Minister did not have the guts to implement or invoke any of the Acts sections in Clay Cross or in the urban district concerned in my hon. Friend's constituency. He had to be a political coward and to hide behind the 1933 Act so that he could get his pound of flesh.
  Whether I am in order or not, I have looked straight in the face of the Minister and called him the biggest political
  284
  coward since his friend was at Munich in 1938. He dare not come to Clay Cross and face the people there and invoke the Housing Finance Act 1972, so he stops us from building houses and withdraws subsidies from Clay Cross. He thinks that he is big and clever and that he has the whole might of the law behind him. I warn the Minister that we shall fight him. We shall continue building houses at Clay Cross even if we have to cadge the money to build them. We shall not increase the rents at Clay Cross whatever he says. He can send Winston Churchill's troops in if he likes, but he will not get any increase on the rents and we shall continue to build. If we have to stop building council houses that will be because the Minister will have withdrawn the subsidies. The crime will be put on those who sit on the Front Bench opposite.
  The only thing on which I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East is his suggestion that this Government will wreck the housing scheme in four years. I say that this Government will not be in power in four years. We shall see to that. The people of this country have already got the numbers and they will see to that. I know what is going through the blank minds of those on the benches opposite. It is the word "Lincoln", because that is the only word for which they have room in their empty heads. We shall be dealing with Lincoln very soon. The housing programme of this Government will be one of the topics we shall be discussing. If the Tory candidate at Lincoln can defend the Tory Government's actions on housing, he is
  "a better man than I am, Gunga Din",
  but I am afraid he cannot. If there is an indictment against this Government over their two-and-a-half years in office, it is that they have completely failed to solve our housing problems.
  Freedom of mortgages and the ease with which one can get a mortgage have been bandied about in the House today. If a man has worked as a road sweeper, a bus conductor, a coal miner, or a tram driver until he is 60 years of age and wants to build his own house, his monthly repayment under any scheme that can be devised is £130. Where is the freedom to build one's own house under this

  285
  Government? Can any man at 60 who has worked all his life in a normal occupation have the ability to borrow £130 per month for repayment? Look at the number of illegitimate children one could keep on that! If the Minister has done his homework he cannot deny this. He may go to any bank manager in England or the manager of any building society and he will be told that if he is to build a house for £8,000 and has an 80 per cent. mortgage and finds the £2,000 himself, he has to pay £130 a month for five years.
  Yet this Government say that they are solving the housing problem and providing freedom for the individual to build his own house. As the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) said, the freedom of the individual depends on his ability to pay. Under this Government it will continue to depend on the ability of the individual to pay. I hope that we shall defeat this amendment and that the motion proposed by my right hon. Friends will be carried by a large majority.
  6.18 p.m.
  Mr. Idris Owen: The debate so far has indicated in no uncertain way profound feelings about the housing situation. Hon. Members on both sides have expressed deep anxiety and how disturbed they are about the housing situation. With much of what the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) said this afternoon I could not quarrel. Nor could I quarrel with much that was said by the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun). I think, however, that the hon. Member could have been a little more generous, for he has been much more generous in other situations.
  It was rather interesting to read a few paragraphs of what he wrote quite recently in an article in a paper called The Environment. The paper stated:
  "Salford M.P., Frank Allaun, writes from Westminster"
  and the heading was
  "Record housing improvement".
  This was rather surprising. The article said:
  "The number of houses improved in the North West doubled in 1972. In the first 11 months alone, 31,106 private houses plus 13,267 council houses, received … improvement grants. This is an all-time record."
  286
  Hardly the sort of thing I would have expected from the hon. Member who decided this afternoon so to criticise the Government without repeating what he said in The Environment.
  I want to look at this from a practical point of view. I suppose that I am the only person who will speak today who has spent a professional lifetime in the housing industry. Since I first entered that industry, when there were 3 million people unemployed, I have seen Governments come and go. Without exception, every one has expressed deep concern about the housing situation. There has been the cut and thrust of debate for 30, 40 or 50 years. The same is true in borough, county council and urban district councils. The debate on housing has gone on.
  When the Opposition assume control the new Opposition criticise them for their failure. As political influences change, everyone criticises one another. It is abundantly clear whichever party has been in power, either at council or Government level, that there has been an inadequacy of housing success. Otherwise we would not find ourselves in this position today.
  When I was quite a young man—
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting series of remarks about the housing policy of various Governments since housing authorities were brought into being after the end of the First World War. It is true that all Governments have not been totally successful. Will he accept, dealing with subsidies—the main driving force in the building of local authority houses —that out of a total of £200 million paid in subsidies before the 1972 Act, £160 million was awarded during the periods of Labour Government between 1945 and 1951 and 1964 and 1970 while only £40 million was accounted for by the Conservative Governments from 1945?
  Mr. Owen: I do not want to pursue that. The files in this House are packed with statistics from time immemorial. I am sure that the hon. Member has seen the voluminous book of statistics on housing. All of this has not produced an extra house. We have talked about Governments and councils building houses

  287
  but it is the construction workers who build the houses. Throughout all this time there has been the dilemma of the inadequacy of housebuilding.
  My mind goes back to when I was a young man and my father was an admirer of the late Lloyd George. He used to tell me about Lloyd George's great success. I believe that Lloyd George achieved his greatest success when he was appointed Minister of Munitions during the First World War. It was because of that success, among other things, that the Government were able to emerge victorious from the 1914–18 war.
  Similarly, in the last war Sir Winston Churchill was able to gather round him a successful team of Ministers from all political parties who enabled us to emerge victorious. If they had dealt with the war situation as Ministers for decades have dealt with the housing situation it is conceivable that we may never have won either of those wars. Lord Woolton was successful in the Ministry of Food in supplying the nation with food.
  Where we seem to go wrong is that we know we have a problem, we believe we have the right answers, but we never seem to produce the results. It has always been my contention that there are three basic necessities for a housing drive. The first is a confidence in the future within the industry. This applies to all industries. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Swain) has asked that the Government should be able to inject confidence into the coalmining industry. Hon. Members from Scotland have asked about confidence in the shipbuilding industry. At present hon. Members representing Bristol are concerned about confidence in the aircraft production industry.
  It is not surprising that the construction industry, too, requires a degree of confidence. This is an important factor and there is no doubt that the last Labour Government were instrumental in destroying to a considerable extent the confidence in that industry, particularly in their last two years of office. The result was that many workers in the construction industry saw little future for themselves. Housing figures were going down, mortgages were difficult to get, there were countless bankruptcies and men left the
  288
  industry in favour of other industries offering greater security.
  The employing section of the industry at once began to cut down on its apprenticeship training. There was no confidence. In addition we had SET, which was most damaging. In those days many employers were driven into the arms of the labour-only sub-contractors to avoid the necessity to pay SET. I do not think that was right. I deplore that action. It was a shocking thing to do but they were driven to it.
  The labour-only teams, commonly known on the site as "the lump", did not have a vestige of an idea about training apprentices and they never intended to do so. To this day they do not train apprentices. The result has been a considerable decline in the number of employees—from about 1,250,000 to about 870,000. That is no mean decline, and it is bound to have an effect on the housing programme. All of that leeway must be made up. This is a practical point put with sincerity.
  The second basic necessity is an adequate supply of land. To the house-builder land is what steel is to the motorcar manufacturer. Deny the motor industry its steel and it would fold up. The land consumed in the 1960s was never replaced by the planners. The result is that we are rapidly running out of this basic commodity. I want the Minister to understand this, because neither he nor his predecessor has ever understood it. The planners had no intention of co-operating with the Minister.
  He can send out circulars until the cows come home but it will not produce one extra acre. He can implore and do anything he likes. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. S. James A. Hill) has already quoted the case of the Cheshire County Council, which told the builders that it would let them know how many acres were available in its area. It fed the facts into the computer which said that there were 1,100 acres available. When this was investigated on an acre-to-acre basis it was discovered that there were only 374 acres available. As my hon. Friend said, some of the land that was fed out of the computer had been developed 10 years previously. So much for computerisation of land control. The situation is quite crazy.

  289
  The computer revealed one thing when they brought it down to the land situation; it showed that in those 374 acres they were quoting areas of 0·26 of an acre available in a certain avenue in a certain urban district. If they have to get down to 0·26 of an acre to build up a land bank they must be in a parlous state, because 0·26 of an acre is not worth quoting. This is the difficulty we are experiencing. The land situation today is such that in many localities where there is a fantastic demand for homes the only land that is being developed for home ownership—and I want hon. Members to note this—is land for which planning permission has been granted as the result of an appeal.
  I believe I am right in saying—although I shall have to check it—that in my constituency not an acre is being developed at the moment for which permission has been granted voluntarily by the planning authority; permission has always come on an appeal. With the sole exception of the land which has been reclaimed as a result of slum clearance no new acreages are being developed at the moment in my constituency that have not come as a result of an appeal. I was told recently by a national housing developer who had built literally thousands of houses that 80 per cent. of the land he is now developing has come as the result of an appeal.
  Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Would my hon. Friend not agree that this shows the value of the improved appeals procedure?
  Mr. Owen: Of course it does, but does it not also show that the planning authorities are not prepared to do anything voluntarily but have to have their arms twisted through an appeals procedure in order to tackle this land situation?
  There cannot be an adequate amount of land when it has trebled and quadrupled in value in a period of 12 months. Is there an adequate amount of land in Cheshire? Land was purchased in 1971 at £15,000 an acre, and similar land close to it is now £30,000 an acre. Is that indicative of the fact that an adequate amount of land is available? Surely, whatever a person's politics, the law of supply and demand prevails, and where there is desperate shortage there must be desperate measures to cope with
  290
  it. There is no question but that the planning authorities in this country must bear the major portion of the blame for the housing shortage and the high land prices. There is no doubt that successive Governments have been wellintentioned—and, to be fair, all Governments have wanted to resolve the housing situation. Hon. Members of this House are well-intentioned and well-motivated, whatever their political parties; they come here to serve the community and they do it in varying ways; sometimes we do not share their approach, but no one can deny that they are well-motivated. But they have failed miserably to resolve this problem, not because they lack motivation but because they have been frustrated—and the frustration starts with the planning authorities.
  To give one example, which anyone can examine, there is an urban district called Bramhall which embraces an area known as Woodford, in Cheshire. The land is designated as proposed green belt. It is half a mile from the urban district centre. The area is 30, 40 or 50 acres, in various pieces. There has never been any cultivation, because it is scrubland and is covered with thistles, or has been used for such things as grazing ponies. This land is generally enclosed by housing development. On the south side of the land area is the open Cheshire countryside, but in between that land and the open countryside is the Hawker-Siddeley aircraft factory, employing several thousand people. Yet this land between the village and the Hawker-Siddeley factory has been designated as probable green belt, merely because of the pressure of people who want to preserve their open view. I do not think that is acceptable. If they want green belt, let them have it, but they must not deny the nation housing to preserve their own back garden.
  Mr. David Stoddart: I have been listening very carefully to the hon. Gentleman's argument. It seems to me that his object is to swing the blame for the shortage of housing on to local planning authorities. I have to tell him that this attempt is very much resented by local authorities. Is he aware that in my constituency of Swindon, where the local authority made land available to a certain firm of builders at reasonable cost, those builders exploited the good will of

  291
  the local authority by charging inordinately high prices for the houses built on that land? Indeed, in a period of one year they doubled the cost of a house on that particular plot of land. Will he also take it from me—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot have speeches by way of intervention. A great many hon. Members want to catch my eye.
  Mr. Owen: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I may try to get to the point which the hon. Member has raised.
  The last necessity is an adequate supply of labour and materials. I think that the material suppliers of this country can certainly meet the challenge; all they need is confidence in the future. I am sure all hon. Members know about the plight of the brick industry over the past two or three decades. It has been a situation of "stop-go", with monotonous regularity. Ministers have gone to the Brick Manufacturers Association and said: "We have a housing programme, we won the election on it we want your help; we want you to assist us by producing the goods". They have opened up kilns which have been cold for years and got going on the drive, but within a short space of time it has been stop again because of an economic crisis, inflation, and so on. As a result, the brick manufacturers were left with thousands of millions of bricks which they could not get rid of. They got scared about the future, closed down their yards and got rid of stocks. So the whole cycle goes on —stop-go; stop-go.
  In spite of that, with the new automated procedures, particularly in the brick industry, I have no doubt that the suppliers of materials will meet the challenge, although I am rather frightened about timber, because there is no doubt that the exporters of timber from overseas are causing difficulties. Timber is higher in price now than it was five years ago by almost 50 per cent., and we have to face problems with the Scandinavians, the Russians and the Canadians. But we must accept the challenge and face it.
  On the labour side the situation is less attractive. As I explained earlier, many men leave the industry, and "the lump" has done hardly anything to assist the housing drive. It has exploited the situa-
  292
  tion. It has built, but at a very high price. It is no secret that men engaged on "the lump"—and I would say that 90 per cent. of the housing in this country is done on "the lump"—are very expensive. We hear and read in newspapers about bricklayers going home with £100 to £120 a week. There was an article a week ago last Monday in the Daily Mail about a bricklayer in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison), who said he earned £140 a week without any trouble. I think the article was called "Muscle Not Brains". And I can say that in the Manchester area £80 or £90 a week is the order of the day.
  The situation is the same as regards plasterers. We have read about an 18year-old plasterer getting £140 a week. This is not so fantastic when one goes round the country and studies the position. There are columns and columns in the local evening papers—the Evening Standard and the Evening News—of advertisements for labour, offering high rates of pay in order to attract labour. The man leaves his job and goes to the highest bidder. That does not solve the housing problem. All that it does is to put up the price of houses. If it were possible to buy land at a reasonable price and obtain labour at 50 per cent. bonus over the trade union negotiated rate house prices would come down by £2,000 overnight.
  If it is conceded that these basic necessities are acceptable in order to get a thriving housing programme, we must see to it that nothing stands in our way to resolve the problem. Any housing Minister could cover himself with glory in a very short space of time. It is a mathematical calculation that about 400,000 acres of land are needed to solve the housing problem, and if that amount of land were released now over and above the annual release of land we should knock the bottom out of the land shortage.
  There is not enough labour to meet any increased housing programme. There will have to be a crash programme in order to train those unfortunate men who have been obliged to leave declining industries. There must be emphasis on speedy training in order to ensure that many more men come forward for work in the construction industry.

  293
  We talk about this being a national problem, and that is what it appears to be, but in fact it is a problem for the stress areas. In many villages and county districts there is no housing problem. There are many areas in which there is an adequate amount of housing. It is in the pressure areas of the big conurbations such as Birmingham, London, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, and so on, that the problem is greatest, and that is where we must try to resolve it.
  I am interested in getting the housing problem solved. If whichever party is in office accepts my suggestion, if we stop playing statistics and politics, and if we roll up our sleeves and treat it in the same way that Lloyd George did the munitions problem and Churchill did the Second World War problem, we shall solve this problem to the nation's satisfaction.
  6.42 p.m.
  Mr. Robert C. Brown: I do not intend to follow the hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Idris Owen) too closely, other than to say that I entirely and fully endorse all that he said about the evils of "the lump" in the construction industry. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is not aware that his right hon. Friend picked up from his predecessor in the Labour Government a ready-made Bill to deal with "the lump", but to date precisely damn all has been done about it.
  Within the scope of this censure debate on the Government it is my intention to spell out my own censure motion on the Tory-controlled Newcastle City Council in very much the same terms as the motion on the Order Paper; namely,
  "its disastrous record of combining the biggest ever increase in the price of housing with the lowest rate of housing completions for a decade."
  That is the censure which I intend to level against the Newcastle City Council.
  I want to indict the Tory-controlled council of my city on a number of counts of flagrantly fleecing the citizens of Newcastle, my constituents. First, I want to go into the selling of building land in the possession of the city council. In Blakelaw ward in my constituency there were a number of prefabs. About three or four years ago these were cleared
  294
  away, and for another couple of years there was, in effect, a virgin site ready for development with council houses. About 18 months ago the Tory-controlled city council decided to sell this land to a private builder. There were at that time 12,000 people on the council's housing waiting list, yet the council took a calculated decision to flog 20 acres of good building land to a private developer.
  The sale duly went through. There were heated debates in the city council over the fact that the council was selling the land to this private developer at a price many thousands of pounds below the price recommended by the district valuer. The land was sold to Cussins, a national contractor, for £95,000, or £4,750 per acre.
  Last week a report was presented to the city council by the housing committee dealing with the development of council houses at Benwell in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short), whose constituency is contiguous with mine. The report revealed that the six acres on which these houses were to be developed had been purchased at a cost of £135,000, or £22,500 per acre.
  Here we have the arrant nonsense of a city council flogging 20 acres of beautiful virgin building land on the northern extremity of the city overlooking the Cheviot Hills at £4,750 per acre and 18 months later, in its desperation to find land to develop council houses within the city boundary, having to buy land at £22,500 per acre on a grotty hillside site which is expensive to develop, and the only amenity for the tenants is that of looking out at a power station, a cooling station and a couple of colliery spoil heaps. That sums up the management of housing in my constituency.
  Secondly, I accuse the city council of putting sheer political dogma before the interests of the citizens. As we on this side of the House know, public enterprise is anathema both to hon. Gentlemen opposite and to Tories in city council chambers. When we were in charge of the Newcastle City Council we built up a first-class housing architect's department but, in keeping with their political prejudices, the Tories on the city council farmed out more and more work to

  295
  private architects after they resumed control in 1967.
  I want again to refer to the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central in relation to a housing project at Byker in Newcastle, Central for which a private architect was engaged. The total contract sum to date is £3,396,171, of which the architect's fees and charges amount to £372,136. According to my mental arithmetic, that is about 11 per cent. The costs of the city housing architect's department have been analysed over a period of six financial years during which there were developments similar to that at the Byker, and they show an average charge of 6 per cent.
  At 6 per cent. the housing architect's department's costs on this Byker contract of £3,396,171 would be about £204,000 but, purely in the interests of political dogma, the Tories on the city council have inflicted on its citizens an extra charge of £168,000 on one contract alone by insisting on farming it out to a private architect instead of giving it to the city housing architect's department.
  Thirdly, I accuse the city council of neglect of the council house building programme, the slowing down of building, the consequent slowing down of the re-housing of our citizens and the failure to develop vacant sites. In 1967 when, unfortunately, the Labour Party lost control of the city council we were building 2,000 houses per year on average. That average has fallen to 800 houses per year in the five-and-a-half years during which the Tories have been in control.
  When we left office in 1967 the waiting last of 6,000 was far too long. Last year the number had risen to 12,000, but this week the waiting list has been finally revised and now stands at 6,500. Here we are, after six years of Tory control, with a longer waiting list than we left in 1967.
  This slowing down of house building is bad for the citizens who are waiting for houses, but there are other spin-offs. Many cleared sites initially earmarked for council house development have stayed vacant for more than five years. It is not very pleasant for families living in close proximity to have to overlook for five years a vacant piece of land resembling
  296
  a bomb site, but that has happened in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central.
  There is also the loss of rateable income and the loss on the capital used to purchase the property which previously occupied the vacant sites. I will give two examples, one at Byker and one at Benwell. The loan charges on the land at Byker are £68,100 and on the land at Benwell £76,000, a total of £144,000 on land which has been standing vacant for five years. Then there is the cumulative loss of rate income at Byker of £228,000 and at Banwell of £139,000, a total of £367,000. That represents a total loss on the two sites of £511,100—over half a million pounds thrown away because of the mismanagement of the council.
  Fourthly, I accuse the city council of conducting the revitalisation programme in an indecent manner. The Government amendment refers to:
  "the provision, by means of improvement grants, of a record number of modernised houses".
  I am pleased that that has happened. The Government have taken advantage of the Labour Government's Act to get revitalisation cracking. What I complain about is the many thousands of council house tenants in my constituency who are suffering abject misery while their houses are being modernised. While they are actually living in the house there are workmen in every room—the kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedrooms. Their carpets are being destroyed by lime, and their furniture is being damaged. It is physically impossible for three or four men working together in a house not to damage furniture in the course of their operations.
  My constituency comprises five wards in the city and an urban district in Northumberland which is contiguous to the Minister's constituency. In the urban district modernisation is going on apace in a civilised fashion because the urban district council in advance built accommodation to rehouse temporarily the people whose houses were to be modernised. It is no coincidence that the district council is a 100 per cent. Labour-controlled council. That is not necessarily the reason why the council has applied common sense, but the city

  297
  council could have done exactly the same.
  What concerns me most is that it is the poorer areas in my constituency in which are living the people who can least afford to refurnish that the most damage is being done. Before the revitalisation programme goes any further, I sincerely hope that the council will give serious consideration—especially in the Scotswood area—to housing tenants in advance of modernisation. God knows, scores of houses are standing empty in that area with a consequent loss of rent income.
  Fifthly and finally, I accuse the city council of evading its responsibilities to the 6,500 people who are awaiting council houses by the indiscriminate selling of council houses. I know that the city council would probably argue that there is nothing so wrong about selling 1,000 council houses, as it did last year, although there are 6,500 people on the waiting list. I do not complain about a person who have lived for 15 years in a council house and will obviously live out his life there being allowed to purchase his house. Most of the people who come to see me are people who need a larger type of semi-detached house suitable for a family. People come to see me who are at the end of their tether with family problems. They are living in overcrowded conditions and need a three-bedroom semi-detached house. They say to me "Mr. Brown, I have seen a lovely house that would just do us a treat at 29 Blogg Street." I immediately make representation to the housing officer of the city council who says "I appreciate that this would house the family very well, but, unfortunately, it is being reserved for sale because it is in an area in which we are selling every house that becomes vacant."
  It is completely immoral to sell vacant council houses which are needed for people on the waiting list. It is one thing to sell to a sitting tenant and quite another to sell a vacant house.
  6.59 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Taylor: The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Robert C. Brown) will not, I hope, expect me to follow his discussion on the merits or otherwise of Newcastle Corporation.
  298
  A few moments ago we were treated to the customary tirade from the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Swain) in support of an obscure local authority in or near his constituency. He preached anarchy, subversion and neglect of the law, and made a vicious attack on my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction. It was very refreshing to see that the hon. Member received no support from his own benches. This is encouraging, because it means that, while there may be differences of opinion between the two sides of the House, there is without doubt one thing in common, that we support the law when it has been passed by the House.
  There can be no hon. Members in this House who are complacent about either the current rate of house building or the current cost of house building. The motion of censure is, therefore, completely out of place today. Not even its most ardent supporter on the Labour benches can suggest that the motion is in any way constructive. Nevertheless, it is for discussion, and some interesting points have been put forward.
  As an hon. Member of the House representing part of the greater London area, I have more than my fair share of housing problems. I share the acute concern expressed by the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Michael Stewart), but I thought that of all the straws which people cling to in their search for a solution his was the weakest I have ever heard. As I understood it, he was concerned that he had sold his house and that within a short space of time it had changed hands on more than one occasion. His solution to the problem was that if a house owner wished to sell his house within a short space of time after having acquired it, the house should first be offered to the local authority. He suggested that the period of limitation should be either two or three years, but he was kind enough to say that he was open to persuasion as to whether it should be one or the other.
  Mr. Donald Stewart: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Robert Taylor). Surely the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Michael Stewart) said that the house had remained empty in the

  299
  meantime and so was not fulfilling its functions as a dwelling-house.
  Mr. Taylor: The right hon. Member for Fulham made the point that if the house remained empty and was offered for resale it should first be offered to the local authority.
  First, I do not accept for one moment that the people of this country are so naive as to continue to sell their homes at well below the market value so that speculators can make a profit in a very short space of time. Secondly, if the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Fulham were put into operation, it is obvious that, if speculators are engaged in this most regrettable practice and the period of resale was limited to two or three years, they would not offer houses for sale until either two years and a day or three years and a day had passed. The result of the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Fulham would be an even greater drying up of accommodation offered for sale on the market.
  The right hon. Member for Fulham—I apologise for taking up his remarks to such a degree but he is a fellow representative of a constituency in the greater London area—said it was an obligation for those London constituencies outside the inner London area to assist those very overcrowded areas close to the city centre. This is a point frequently put forward, and we can without doubt anticipate hearing about it in the forthcoming greater London elections.
  I have the privilege to represent part of the borough of Croydon. When the Greater London Development Plan was produced in 1969 it was suggested that the lowest population figure for the borough of Croydon should be 305,700 and the highest within the limited area of the borough should be 312,100. Today the population of the borough of Croydon is 332,000. In other words, in that short space of time Croydon has accepted more than 20,000 in excess of what was thought to be the maximum sensible figure bearing in mind the boundaries of the borough.
  This refutes categorically the idea that the outer London boroughs are not assisting in the great problem of finding accommodation for the people in the greater London area as a whole.
  300
  Nevertheless, it is my view that, however many homes are built in the greater London area, there will always be a constant demand from people who wish to live near the place at which they work.
  I put forward what I regard as a constructive suggestion. To give the basis of the suggestion, I give the example of a problem which confronted me within the last month. A young man from my constituency came to me with a story of great distress. He was married with a wife and one child but they were living some considerable distance apart. The wife and child remained with her parents and the young man with his parents. They were separated by a distance of some two miles. He was in great distress because his marriage was in a very difficult situation. He had visited marriage guidance counsellors and had done everything possible to find accommodation for his family. As would any hon. Member on either side of the House, I naturally viewed this as a case where one tries one's best to find suitable accommodation for the family. I believe an acceptable proposition will shortly be forthcoming from the local authority.
  However, this young man is at present earning £1,600 per annum and is only 19; if he takes this council accommodation, which I believe will shortly be offered to him, he will have the right to remain in that council accommodation for the rest of his life and it can be passed on to his son or his daughter. That unit of accommodation could well be locked up for 60 years. During that period the hon. Members fortunate enough to represent this area will have many approaches from people in similar dire straits and in similar need of accommodation. It is not feasible to expect councils to provide this accommodation time and time again for people to occupy it generation after generation. [Interruption.] This is precisely the case because the accommodation can be handed on one generation.
  I therefore believe there is a case for limited tenancies. It would be more sensible for the local authority to offer accommodation to such a young man for a period of, say, seven years at a fixed rent, but at the end of that period the accommodation should be available for someone with need equal to that of this young family today. The Government

  301
  should urge local authorities to introduce a system of limited tenancies on leases, such as are available in the private sectors in certain fortunate parts of the country, terminating in, say, five or seven years' time.
  Mr. William Molloy: This is the first time I have ever heard, even from the Tory Party, which has denied people homes when they are alive, the proposition of denying them homes before they are even born. I have a similar problem in my constituency. People come to my surgery with their housing problems. I cannot help them, because the local authority's housing list is enormous, but I can tell them "There is plenty of accommodation in a certain part of the borough". I advise them to go there, but tell them that they must realise that the rent is about £32 a week or that a house costs £40,000, which they cannot afford. That accommodation is empty. Their only hope is the local authority.
  Mr. Taylor: I see no relevance to my argument in that intervention. The young man in question is earning £1,600 a year, and within a few years he will be earning considerably more. If he is on a fixed rent for seven years, with no suggestion of an increase, it is surely sensible for him to look for his own house to purchase at the end of that period—
  Mr. David Stoddart: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Taylor: No. I have just given way, and the hon. Gentleman has already intervened in another hon. Member's speech and been rebuked by Mr. Speaker for the length of his intervention.
  I am in favour of tenancies of a specific length where there will be no rent increase, so that people have an opportunity to save for a deposit for their own home. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ludicrous."] Labour Members seem to find this amusing.
  Mr. Ronald Brown: It is silly, and the hon. Gentleman knows it.
  Mr. Taylor: I know perfectly well that it is a very sound proposition. I know that the young man will be delighted to take council accommodation on those
  302
  terms, because he has the initiative to try to create a home for himself and his family. It is his ambition, like that of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East to buy his own house. But probably, unlike the hon. Gentleman, he will take a single plot. The hon. Gentleman gloried in the fact that he has purchased a plot to build his own bungalow. When someone offered him double the price he asked "Is it for your own home?" He was told that it was not, that the plan was to build two houses. I believe that it would have been far better if the hon. Gentleman had sold it to help meet the current housing shortage, because two homes would have been placed on that plot.
  I turn to part of the motion which has hardly been mentioned in the debate, the actual cost of building, which is a great problem. The report on restrictive trading agreements by the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements, published this week, tells us that there is something very wrong with the construction industry. It gives details of many contracts in the public sector where there has been collusion, something that should be regretted wholeheartedly by hon. Members on both sides. But to a certain degree that collusion is inevitable if the system demands that six contractors should tender for every contract.
  In Croydon there is difficulty in obtaining tenders from various contracting firms. It would be advantageous to every local authority if contractors could have a negotiated contract rather than a competitive contract. Because of the cost of estimating, if six firms tender for a job they will not take the matter seriously. They will not go into it in detail. They will quote an overall price, not really expecting to obtain the contract. To reduce the cost of building, there should be more negotiated contracts in the public sector.
  7.14 p.m.
  Mr. Harry Ewing: The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Robert Taylor) and the House will understand if I do not seek to tread the paths the hon. Gentleman has trodden for the past 15 minutes. I shall content myself with two observations on his speech and the previous speeches.
  I refer, first, to the rather loud interventions when the hon. Gentleman was

  303
  speaking about a tenancy being terminated after seven years on a fixed rent basis. The hon. Gentleman's Government recently passed the Housing Finance Act, as a result of which by law each year there shall be an increase in rent. In the view of hon. Members on this side, the conversion must come in the Tory Party, certainly not in the Labour Party.
  A common thread has run through previous speeches. The Opposition have been accused of producing nothing constructive. It has become a feature of the present Government that when they find themselves in trouble, having dismantled the measures introduced by the 1964–1970 Labour Government, they again look to the Opposition to dig them out and produce constructive policies. We on this side are not lacking in constructive policies, but it is a two-way process. The Government must be prepared to learn to keep an open mind.
  I am always surprised that there is a degree of surprise when there is a variation of opinion on housing matters between a Conservative Government and a Labour Opposition. It has always been a feature of Conservative Governments that housing has not been high on their list of priorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) spelt the matter out graphically when he said that defence and armaments expenditure will overtake housing expenditure by a substantial amount, and housing will thereby be further relegated down the list of priorities. That has been traditional Tory policy throughout the years.
  The present Conservative Government's record can be summed up by saying that in their two and a half years of office so far they have presided over a record increase in house prices and a substantial decrease in local authority building. By their present policies they are ensuring that the go-ahead local authorities, which under a Labour Government were able to solve their housebuilding problems—I say "housebuilding problems" as distinct from housing problems, because they are two different things—will face in the not-too-distant future being unable to meet the demand for accommodation that will be placed upon them.
  I am conscious that many of my hon. Friends want to speak, so I shall briefly
  304
  deal with those three points in turn, coming first to the increase in private house prices. I refer the Secretary of State for Scotland, who, I understand, will wind up the debate for the Government, to an article in Monday's edition of the Daily Record, in which John Calder said that private house prices in Scotland last year leapt by 21 per cent. to an all-time high. He also said that the present average price of a new house in Scotland at nearly £8,000—he put it at £7,600, but £400 is nothing to the present Government—is the highest in the history of the country.
  Many young couples were betrayed and conned by the Conservatives into voting for them at the last General Election. They believed that it would be easier under a Conservative Government to obtain a mortgage on a new house or finance to build their own house because of the promise of the better tomorrow. They are still patiently waiting to know when that better tomorrow in respect of housing is to arrive. The Government stand condemned if only on that one issue.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Michael Stewart) described the situation in crystal-clear terms. I was ha filed that the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West completely missed the point. My right hon. Friend was saying that houses in the private sector are being used like gambling pawns, to he shifted around by people making profit without the houses ever being occupied. That is the position in which we are.
  For the first time in our history it has now become highly profitable under a Conservative Government to buy a hole in the ground and fill it in. Thereby it can be sold at a fantastic profit for the purpose of building houses.
  The hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Idris Owen) made a brilliant case—I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not here—for taking all land into public ownership. I hope that he will work the miracle of conversion on his right hon and hon. Friends.
  Mr. Gower: When the hon. Gentleman refers to the people who live in privately owned houses, does he appreciate that he is, when taking the United Kingdom as a whole, referring to about half the nation? He is referring to a formidable number of people as profiteers.
  Mr. Ewing: Again it would appear that in order to get this point across to hon. Members opposite we might well have to draw pictures. The point is that the houses were never occupied. They were sold three, four or five times without anybody putting a stick of furniture into them. We are referring to persons who sell houses who are not house owners but are property speculators in the same mould as Rachman, who made substantial profits under the last Conservative Government. We are now seeing similar conduct in a different guise under the present Government.
  I recently asked a series of Questions of the Secretary of State for Scotland about not my own constituency but the constituency of South Angus. I admit that the Questions were put down as a reprisal for Questions put down about my constituency. However, the answers were most revealing. I was told in reply to four or five of the 10 Questions which I asked, which were quite detailed, about housing matters in that part of the country, that the information was not available.
  The Government are carrying out their business against the background that information is not available, or, in other words, that they do not know. Recently I asked about the average price of a private house in Scotland. I was again told that the information was not available. I am beginning to wonder what information is available from the Scottish Office at present.
  The information which I was given, which cannot be concealed, relates to the number of housing submissions by Scottish local authorites in the last two or three years. The key figures are those for the last quarter in 1971 and the last quarter in 1972. In the last quarter of 1971 local authorities in Scotland were inspired under the promise of additional residual subsidy to submit additional houses for building. There was a sting in the tail inasmuch as the houses had to be completed before a date in mid-1974. In that quarter there were 28,611 houses submitted by Scottish local authorities. There is evidence coming to light even at present that some of those authorities have over-stretched their capacity to build the houses which they submitted.
  306
  The Under-Secretary of State for Development looks surprised, but he knows that at least one large borough in Scotland has already written permission from the Scottish Office or the Secretary of State to extend the deadline if it does not complete its houses within the specified time. Therefore, there is already evidence that some Scottish local authorities have over-estimated their ability to build these houses and that there are applications coming in for extensions.
  It will be seen that in the last quarter of 1972, as distinct from 1971, there were nearly 30,000 houses submitted and only 1,000 houses submitted by Scottish local authorities. When I asked whether the housing completions are likely to be for 1973, 1974 or 1975 and beyond, I received the rather loose answer that the housing completions will reflect the housing submissions which have been approved. Hon. Members can make what they like out of that jigsaw puzzle.
  One thing which never becomes clear from all these figures is that the local authority house building programme in Scotland will come to a full stop in the later months of 1975. If the Secretary of State wants to deny that, I can assure him that there are a great many Scottish local authorities wondering how they will avoid coming to a full stop in the later months of 1975.
  We have already discussed at length the Housing Finance Act, and I do not want to go over rehashed ground. However, the Government have presided over a substantial decrease in local authority building and a substantial increase in private house rents. They have made the future completely uncertain. It is equally true that the Government have presided over the largest increase in municipal rents that we have ever seen. Not only that, but they have preserved the inequalities in public sector housing in Scotland.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office (Mr. George Younger)indicated dissent.
  Mr. Ewing: The Under-Secretary of State shakes his head. I suggest that he reads the Act. It is built into the Housing Finance Act that there will be different levels of rent for local authorities in Scotland as distinct from the Scottish

  307
  Special Housing Association, whose rents be that much higher, and as distinct from the new towns in Scotland, whose rents will be that much higher still. How on earth any Government can try to bring justice to the housing scene in the public sector with three different levels of rent is beyond me.
  Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman is drawing the wrong conclusion. That has always been the case under successive Governments. The only effect of the present legislation is that the gap which he is complaining about is being substantially narrowed for the first time.
  Mr. Ewing: I know that it has always been the case, but the Government were talking about bringing fairness into housing. We will continue to argue that rent levels should be uniform.
  Mr. Edward Taylor: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Ewing: I welcome the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor). It is nice to see him here. If the Government seek to preserve that differential they must expect discontent. That is bound to happen. There should be another look at the housing revenue account. It should be restructured. There are items charged to the housing revenue account at present which do not relate to housing. If we are to deal with the problem of housing finance, the Government should restructure the housing revenue account.
  I shall be happy to go through the Division Lobby tonight with my right hon. and hon. Friends to condemn the Conservative Government's housing record. I am certain that when the Dundee, East by-election takes place, the electors will also condemn the housing record of this Government. I am even more certain that when a General Election comes, irrespective of the high hopes of Sir William McEwan Younger, the electors of Scotland will condemn this Conservative Government.
  7.30 p.m.
  Mr. J. D. Dormand: I shall be extremely brief in dealing with a problem that is causing great concern in my constituency as in other parts of the country. It is a matter which was referred to on two or three occasions in the
  308
  Secretary of State's speech. I refer to the inability of my local authority to obtain tenders to meet the cost yardstick laid down by the Department of the Environment. This position has now existed for a year as far as Easington Rural District Council is concerned—a council with a housing record second to none.
  Costs in the North-East of England continue to escalate—indeed, they are sky-high. In the recent debate on secondary education I concentrated on the same point in relation to the building of schools, where there are serious delays. One North-East newspaper recently carried a headline "£10,000 council houses". That is the situation in the North-East.
  The Department recognises that the problem exists because it permits a "market conditions allowance". One such allowance has been made to my local authority, but the 11 per cent. which has been permitted still leaves a margin of £17,000, which means that the scheme cannot be started. I understand that it is not unusual for local authorities to have larger margins. Indeed my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) referred in his opening speech to Norwich, where he said an allowance of 60 per cent. had been made. I understand that the allowance in Birmingham is 40 per cent. Therefore, my plea is simply for a much more generous attitude towards this allowance in respect of authorities such as my own.
  In the debate on 2nd November 1972 the then Secretary of State, when announcing these special yardstick allowances in areas of particular stress, said:
  "In announcing this I think we will be able to prevent any loss of momentum among the authorities in their housing building progran-Imes.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd November 1972. Vol. 845, c. 348.]
  In my constituency there has been not only a loss of momentum; things have come to a standstill as far as new schemes are concerned. Slum clearance has come to a halt.
  Suggestions have been made for certain items to be cut, but these proposals involve an unacceptable lowering of standards. I support my council in this view. In the North-East our standards have been too low for too long. In this debate we should be talking about raising rather than reducing standards.

  309
  The basic problem is that the cost yardstick is now completely unworkable. There have been rumours for some months that a new yardstick, much more related to present day conditions is to be announced. I hope that when the Under-Secretary of State for Development replies to the debate we shall be given some firm information on this aspect, for unless something is done as a matter of urgency, the building of council houses in my constituency will come to a standstill. In an area which has had a serious housing problem for many years, this will be disastrous. I appeal to the Minister for prompt action in this difficulty. I understand that my local authority has asked for a deputation to be allowed to meet the Minister to discuss the whole problem, and I hope that he will readily agree to it.
  7.35 p.m.
  Mr. Edward Taylor: I regret that I was unable to be here for the earlier part of the debate, but I had to attend a meeting of the Consumer Committee. I wish to refer briefly to a few points which I hope my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will deal with in his reply.
  I should like to say a brief word about the points raised by the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ewing). The hon. Gentleman called for equality of treatment in Scotland, in terms of Scottish Special Housing Association tenants, new town tenants and council tenants. In the last Parliament some of my colleagues and I continually pressed the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) to do something to bring equality of treatment within those three categories. In my constituency of Cathcart there are SSHA houses and Glasgow Corporation houses side by side, factored by the Corporation of Glasgow and coming under the housing list.
  In the appalling situation which existed under the previous Government the Secretary of State forced the SSHA to put up rents regularly, year by year. In the new towns local authorities were under no such compulsion. The ludicrous situation which resulted was that the SSHA tenants suffered much higher rents than the Glasgow Corporation tenants even though their houses were in the same streets, factored by the same
  310
  local authority and dealing with tenants on the same housing lists. The new legislation will put the situation right, because there will be equality of treatment as between SSHA and municipal tenants.
  Mr. Ewing: Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear that the way the new Bill puts this right is not by holding down the level of SSHA rents but by increasing the level of municipal rents? If the hon. Gentleman sees justice in that, he ought to explain himself.
  Mr. Taylor: Instead of a blanket subsidy being given to a section of the community irrespective of need, we seek to concentrate the subsidy on those who need it—whether they be a new town, SSHA or municipal homes. This is a fairer way of proceeding, which I hope will remove the sort of complaint that we have heard from the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs.
  I was present in the Chamber to hear the speech made by the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun), who feels passionately about this subject. He said that the answer to the housing problem was to build more houses. This is a theme which we constantly hear from the hon. Gentleman, who speaks eloquently and sincerely on these matters, but I suggest to him that the answer is not just to build more houses. It is a question not just of the number of houses but of their location. Unfortunately, many of the places at which housing schemes have been sited have attracted for themselves a bad name, and although many people on the housing lists have three or four times been offered houses on those sites, they have declined to accept them. They say "We do not want a house in Scheme Y or Scheme X. We shall wait for a scheme with different amenities, in a more pleasant and more convenient area."
  We are creating a new social problem in our cities, involving new schemes of this nature which are in danger of becoming slums of the future not because the accommodation is inadequate, but because we are concentrating our socially deprived families in those areas. This is becoming a new problem in Glasgow. I have no authority to speak about Glasgow housing lists, but I know of people in Cathcart who have been offered

  311
  modern houses by the Glasgow Corporation but in a place where they do not want to live. This will be the major problem for the future.
  Bearing in mind the large schemes we have, some of which have bad names, some of which have a large number of social problems, some of which are starved of amenities, our concentration in our major cities in the future should not be just on building more and more rows of houses, some of which will be desperately sought after and some of which will lie empty. We should concentrate our resources on improving the amenities of our present major housing schemes. For Glasgow, in an area such as Easterhouse, which has many problems, instead of building more houses we should spend money on trying to improve community facilities and morale. That is very important.
  What can be done? We know that one of our major problems in municipal areas—particularly an area like Glasgow, with over 120,000 council houses and with about 44 per cent. of all houses, at the last count, owned by the local authority—is raising morale and the standards 'If the schemes. First, we should provide more amenities. Secondly, perhaps more importantly, we should do something about problem tenants—the kind of tenants who, when introduced to a street or an area, can bring down the standards. These are not particularly vicious or vindictive families. Most are families who cannot cope with financial problems and with home life.
  In one of the housing schemes in my area we have the social work organisation called the Family Service Unit, which has done more to improve the general standards of the area than any building or new enterprise. We know that many families moving into these houses have to refurnish. They have to buy carpets on hire purchase, and to repaint, and so on. They are presented with a large number of bills, which they have to pay by weekly instalments. They get into deep financial troubles. Often the problem is not a shortage of cash but an inability to manage, or to budget. Even a simple change from a weekly rent—for which it is easy to budget—to a monthly or quarterly rent is a major problem.
  312
  The increase in rent to which the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs referred has taken place. Whereas in the past many families were paying rent out of a weekly wage, so that for one week in the month they had a bad week with no money to spare because of the rent, suddenly they find that because of increased rents it cannot be done out of a weekly wage. They have to budget. That can he a problem with quarterly electricity bills, which are expensive because of under-floor heating, the move to all-electric services, telephone bills, which are very substantial when they are paid quarterly, and the rates and rent bill.
  We need a major drive to provide more social work help in such areas to help families to cope. This may well mean ensuring that a social worker or representative will take one of the family's allowance books, or even a welfare book, and say to that family, "We shall pay any instalments for you until you can cope yourself."
  It is a tragedy that so many families are unable to cope. This brings about trouble. It means that they create social problems. It brings down an area very badly, and usually ends up with either an eviction or a forced transfer to one of the lower amenity areas.
  In planning for the future, let us spend more money on the necessary amenities for an area. Let us have all the schools and community centres that we need. Let us ensure that there are suitable shopping centres throughout the areas. Let us investigate the policy of breaking up the big schemes into a number of smaller schemes, each with its own centre and, as Glasgow Corporation is doing at present, let us provide more than one name for the big schemes, so that we have a more effective sense of community.
  I hope that more will be spent on what I call community deprivation, instead of building more and more houses on the periphery which will not be let and which, being empty, will be an eyesore in our communities. Let us stop the ridiculous situation of a so-called housing list of over 50,000 alongside many empty houses in certain schemes.
  On the private housing side, in Scotland as in the rest of the country, we have seen a dramatic rise in the price of private housing. The reasons are fairly clear. There have been increased costs,

  313
  although that is not the main factor. The main factor has been the greater availability of credit and mortgages. The easy availability of money means also that firms have made profits which they did not anticipate or hope for.
  The only answer is to provide more land. It is very easy to say that, but whenever we go about designating an area formerly zoned for open space to be used for housing, we have immense pressure from local residents, who say that they bought their houses on the strict understanding that others would never be built in front of them. Then we have public inquiries, and so on. What progress are we making in the West of Scotland in providing more land?
  In relation to housing and employment, one of our major problems—the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Alexander Wilson) would agree with this—is that in Scotland we do not have a population which is as mobile as that of other parts of the country. The main reason for that is that so many of our people are tenants of the SSHA, new towns or local authority houses. They have waited a long time for the house they wanted, and once they are there they are not mobile, because transfers are difficult to get, despite the central exchange in Paisley. It is difficult to find a house when one has been living in rented accommodation at a time when prices are very high.
  We want to increase mobility. Can my hon. Friend the Minister say whether, in Scotland, we shall be pressing for home ownership through the purchase of council houses by sitting tenants as hard as it appears that it is being done in England—and whether any progress has been made? Is the central exchange in Paisley producing results? How many exchanges between areas have been brought about?
  On rents, we have three issues before us at present in Scotland. First, there is the last remaining large local authority in Clydebank, which is holding out in refusing to implement the Housing Finance Act. I hope that my hon. Friend and his advisers will not do what I believe some of these rebels want them to do, namely, to create a situation in which they can be martyrs. Many Socialist-controlled major councils objected to the Bill. They did not like it, but they have, reluctantly, accepted it. We do not want to make
  314
  martyrs or heroes out of this small group of local government anarchists in Clydebank. Action should be taken speedily. The obvious way, if it can be done, is for the Secretary of State to take over the responsibility for running the Clydebank local authority. Will my hon. Friend indicate whether that would be legal?
  On the question of private rents, my hon. Friend will be aware that while the machinery for fair rents established by the previous Government has, by and large, been working smoothly, if not well, there appear to be special problems in Glasgow. There appears to be relative harmony between the decisions of the rent officers and rent assessment committees in many parts of Scotland, but in Glasgow, over the last year rent officers have generally been fixing rents which are much lower than those fixed by the rent assessment committee.
  The advice that I give to my constituents at my weekly surgery is that if the rent officer fixes a figure which seems to me to be the known figure for the Glasgow rent officer, they should avoid like the plague going to the rent assessment committee. It appears that in the vast majority of recent cases in Glasgow the rent assessment committee, when a rent has been appealed, is fixing rents which are much higher than that fixed by the rent officer.
  Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Why?
  Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman should know this. He was partly responsible for the implementation of the 1969 Act, which has caused the havoc we are experiencing at present. This is striking a great deal of fear into the hearts of tenants. Many are scared to go to the rent assessment committee because they know that it is fixing rents that in some cases are astronomically higher than those fixed by rent officers.
  Dr. Dickson Mabon: I did not say "Why?" in order to be difficult. I genuinely want to know why. This is not necessarily the experience of rent assessment committees elsewhere in Scotland. There must be something seriously wrong with the rent assessment committee if that is true.
  Mr. Taylor: It worries me a great deal. People who have rents fixed by

  315
  a rent officer often think there are grounds for a second look at the assessment. Many tenants in Glasgow are scared to go to the rent assessment committee because it appears to be fixing rents much higher than those fixed by the rent officers. I will give an example of which the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) will be aware, because he has taken a great interest in this subject.
  A company called The Western Heritable Investment Company owns a large number of houses in the constituencies of the Lord Advocate, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie), the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Milian) and the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Gregor Mackenzie). The landlords applied for a fair rent to be fixed under the 1969 Act, which was presented by the then Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock. The 1971 Act is the consolidation of the two Acts passed by the previous Government in 1965 and 1969. The rent officer, after carefully considering the matter—it concerned six test cases for a large area—fixed the rent at £204. The tenants thought, rightly or wrongly, that this figure was excessive and they appealed to the Glasgow Rent Assessment Committee, which fixed a rent of £340. That was an increase of £136 per annum, or over £2·10 a week more than that fixed by the rent officer. This is not unusual in my experience in Glasgow. There clearly is something wrong if we have the rent assessment committee and rent officers going in different directions.
  I do not know much about the rent assessment committee—although I have attended hearings on behalf of constituents—but I know the Glasgow rent officers. My impression is that they take their job seriously, do it firmly, and try to be fair to both tenant and landlord. I am not very happy about some of the activities of the Glasgow Rent Assessment Committee. It would be wrong for me, with my limited experience, to condemn it, but something is obviously wrong, and I hope that it can be put right.
  My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will be aware that although it was not intended the 1969 Act, now consolidated in the 1971 Act, has created a situation in which private rents, which in some cases were admittedly ridiculously low,
  316
  have been increased by a staggering amount. For example, a rent of 12s. 6d. a week, which has wrongly gone on for about 40 years, will now be increased to about £7 a week over three annual increases. I do not think that the draftsmen of the Bill were thinking in terms of these increases. Whether they did or not —[Interruption.] It is not a question of late conversion. Before the election I had several meetings with the then Minister about the matter that I am now raising.
  We have passed a Bill which ensures that council rents will be increased by no more than 75p per week per annum. We know that council rents have been very low, and that they must rise over a period so we have put an annual limit on the increase. Such a limit would be quite wrong for vacant houses. However, I believe that although private rents have been low and should have been raised, it is fair and reasonable, if we are limiting the increase in council and SSHA rents to a specific amount per year, that there should be a similar limitation for tenants in private houses which have been controlled. I cannot support a situation where council tenants' rents will not go up by more than 75p per week per year while private tenants living just across the road have no such limitation on the annual increase in their rents.
  We now have rent allowances for private tenants and rent rebates for municipal tenants. This is splendid. It should have been done a long time ago, but it is grand that it has been done now. These allowances are now available to both council and private tenants. But how can we justify drawing a fine line between the two and saying that in the one case we will limit the increase to 75p per week per year and in the other case, that of the private tenant, there will be no such limitation? It is difficult to justify that situation, and I hope that some way will be found of doing something about it.
  7.55 p.m.
  Mr. Gerald Kaufman: As the debate has proceeded, the differences between the two sides have been over not simply the motion and the amendment and the dismal record of this Government since 1970 but the whole approach to housing problems. Hon. Members opposite, with the single exception of the hon. Member for Glasgow,

  317
  Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor), look upon housing as cost accounting, money, and how to deal with matters in terms of ledgers. Hon. Members on this side, who have to deal with human problems week in, week out, look upon housing as a matter of flesh and blood when they see their constituents.
  I wish to return the debate to what it should be about—namely, the human realities of housing. I wish the House to know about the human suffering which goes on in my constituency because of the housing problems with which my constituents are afflicted. It should know of the lady who telephoned me a few days ago saying that she had not been in touch with me lately because she had been in hospital recovering from the overdose of tablets that she had taken under stress due to her unresolved housing problems; of the lady who came to my advice bureau on Saturday morning and broked down in tears telling me that her home had been lost and that by the end of the month she would have nowhere to go; of the man who came to see me and told me how in his slum home in part of my constituency his wife, bronchitic and epileptic, had during an epileptic seizure fallen into the fire and severely burned herself; of the man who wrote and told me of his family's situation: four brothers sharing one bedroom and an eleven-year-old daughter sharing the bedroom with her mother and father; of the man who came to see me and told me that his wife could not bear to be in their house any longer because they had lost two babies in it, one only on Boxing Day; and of the old lady, now in hospital, whose house in the middle of Manchester, after two and a half years' pressure by myself on the slum landlord, had electricity installed at long last. That lady, elderly, arthritic, disabled and now in hospital with cerebral ischemia, cannot now, at the end of her life, enjoy the luxury of electricity in her house. The House should also know of a house in another part of my constituency where, after nine months, the landlord is still resisting the pressure that I have put upon him to install a bath for the tenant.
  These constitute only a fraction of the housing cases which I encounter in my constituency. The great city of Manchester, which is suffering from a Government who have made it more difficult
  318
  to find a home, to buy a home or to rent a home, is only now in 1973 beginning to recover from four disastrous years of Conservative control in the town hall.
  Yet, what did the Conservative Party, which we accuse tonight, promise at the General Election? It is perhaps indecent now to turn to "A Better Tomorrow", its election manifesto, but it is necessary to do so. On page 7 it said:
  "We will reverse the decline in building, make home ownership easier again …".
  Last year saw the lowest number of housing completions for nine years and the lowest number of council house completions for 11 years. They would
  "make home ownership easier again."
  In the North-West last autumn a new house cost £5,420 compared with £4,400 in 1970 when the Government came to power.
  The manifesto attacked what is described as
  "the highest mortgage interest rates in our history."
  That was under the Labour Government. Those interest rates, denounced by Tory MPs, are just as high now. How my constituents wish they could go back to the situation when the Government took over. How they wish they could go back to those bad old days of 1970 food prices, 1970 clothes prices and 1970 rents. The Secretary of State for the Environment, in his lackadaisical speech today, said that local authorities had the right to determine their own housing policies. Yet the Manchester local authority has been forced by the Department to push up council rents in my constituency and in the other Manchester constituencies, including the two represented by Conservative MPs, both of whom have not been present for the debate today.
  The authorities have been forced by the Government to increase rents by 92p per week, and the first private house rents will go up in Manchester 12 weeks from now. All this takes no account of the massive rent increase looming over Manchester which will hit householders hardest. Already under the Housing Finance Act council tenants have been suffering from problems, tension and bitterness as they apply for rebates and as they find that they do not qualify that the advertisements placed in the

  319
  newspapers by the Department of the Environment have been untruthful and misleading. If the needs allowance, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman boasted about, is taken up, if my constituents apply and qualify for it, by so doing they will be adding to the ratepayers' burden because all of these allowances, including the new £3·50 needs allowance, come not from the Government but from the ratepayer and the rentpayer.
  As for private rents, I am at this moment investigating a case in my constituency of a 73-year-old widow, a private tenant, whose landlord has told her, without any legal right so to do, that when the freeze ends at the end of April he will increase her rent by £2·14 a week. That is the kind of trickery and knavery that is going on under the Government's legislation. Every kind of tenant is suffering: the council tenant, the private tenant—as this gross and appalling case makes clear—and also the tenant in furnished accommodation. In greater Manchester the average rent of furnished tenancies has risen under the Government from £2·92 a week to £4·82 a week—a 65 per cent. increase. As any hon. Member who represents an area containing a large proportion of furnished tenancies will know, such tenancies are often occupied by the most vulnerable section of the population, by the poorest tenant and often by tenants living in the worst kind of accommodation. Yet these people are having to pay 65 per cent. more than they did when the Government came to power.
  Under the Labour-controlled council, Manchester is doing everything it can to deal with the housing situation. It is clearing slums at a record rate—last year it cleared 4,854. It is out-building every other provincial city. Its completions last year were 1,000 ahead of the best of the other provincial cities. But what good is it the Labour council building houses when the Tory Government then price them out of the tenants' pocket by using the Housing Finance Act?
  The Manchester City Council, having been forced by the Secretary of State to put up rents by 92p a week, has now decided that, in order to achieve the fair rents which the Government are insisting
  320
  that it should impose, an average increase of only 5p a week for corporation property is required. We shall now see whether the rent scrutiny board accepts that the 5p increase per week is all that is needed, because if it does not accept that and if it insists that rents must go up even higher to more penal levels it will serve only to drive the council tenants whom I represent on to the mortgage market. If that happens, they will force the spiral up still further. They will suffer, too, from the crazily unfair rate revaluation unless the Prime Minister delivers the goods when the leaders of the councils see him on Friday.
  How in these circumstances can the Government, having imposed these burdens on all classes of householder, expect wage-earners to accept pay restraint under the legislation now being pushed through the House? I therefore make simple and clear demands, and I make them knowing that I speak for the majority of my constituents. The Government must drop the Housing Finance Act. They must bring in rent control for furnished tenancies. They must arrest interest rates. They must freeze house prices, and they must intervene to hold down the price of building land.
  We are still waiting for the better tomorrow promised in the Conservative Party's untruthful document, but meanwhile for the home owner, for the would-be home owner, for the tenant and for the would-be tenant it will be a long dark night before the dawn.
  8.8 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Trew: The hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) is right to draw attention to the problem of housing in Manchester and the other conurbations, but he is wrong to say that his party has a monopoly of concern for human problems. What he dismisses as a book-keeping or a ledger approach to housing—by which I presume he means the Housing Finance Act—is an attempt to channel resources to those areas where the need is greatest, particularly in slum clearance.
  I apologise to the House that I have not been present in the Chamber for long. I have been engaged in the Standing Committee on the Counter-Inflation Bill. I also declare an interest in construction

  321
  and housing development. I wish to refer first to public ownership of land and secondly to the question of land prices. The Labour Party has come forward with very few specific proposals in housing, but one that it has made is that building land should come into public ownership. However, it has not spelt out the precise ways in which it will achieve that, and because it is an important subject and one to which the people of this country are entitled to an explanation I shall explain my understand of its intentions and try to assess what might be involved.
  First, all the land in the country would have to be surveyed and its development potential assessed. That land would then have to be valued. It would have to be valued, first, on existing use and then on market value, and finally a price below market value would have to be calculated at which it should be made available for development. That having been done, negotiations would have to be entered into with the owners to enable the land to pass into public ownership. If those negotiations failed there would obviously have to be recourse to compulsory purchase. To achieve all this, a public body of sorts would have to be set up, and clearly a name would have to be found for it. As the Labour Party has not suggested a name, I will put one forward. It should adopt the name of a very similar body which carried out almost identical functions. The new body would require the same sort of staff, and in very large numbers, and it would be called, of course, the Land Commission—because the Labour Party's proposals for the public ownership of land are nothing more than a proposal to resurrect in another form the Land Commission. The Labour Party has never really got over its grief at the demise of that absurd body with all its bureaucratic paraphernalia.
  There are one or two specific problems arising from the public ownership of land—as I understand the Labour Party to be conceiving it—which are worth mentioning. I understand it is part of its proposals that it will make this land, which it has acquired at existing use value, available to developers at something below market value. I believe the words used by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition were "at a
  322
  reasonable price". The intention would be that developers, having acquired the land at this relatively low price, should then be able to sell houses at below the present price level, which we all agree is unacceptable. But an immediate consequence of that is that unless some restriction were placed on the resale of those houses, people buying them would immediately have an opportunity to re-sell them at a profit.
  This would have to be dealt with in one or two ways. Either there would have to be price control on the sale of all houses—and I do not think the Labour Party would adopt that because administratively it would be exceedingly difficult—or the land would have to be made available on a special form of tenure, probably Crownhold, with a stipulation that if the house were to be sold within a period of, let us say, five years, any profit on resale would accrue to the State. That is probably the proposal the Labour Party would adopt. This is a reasonable proposition if that is what hon. Gentlemen opposite want to achieve. But a consequence would be that we should then have two distinct classes of property ownership—existing houses, either under freehold or leasehold, with no restriction on resale; and all new houses being built on publicly-owned land, which would be subject to restriction on resale.
  A consequence, I suggest, would be to make much more popular existing houses having no restriction on resale, which I believe would lead to an increase in the price of those other secondhand houses. There is another question to which we all want an answer: precisely how far would the Labour Party carry nationalisation of land? Would it extend to that part of people's gardens which were reckoned to have development value? The gardeners of Britain are waiting anxiously to know whether their vegetable gardens are to be nationalised. In times of Labour Government, vegetable gardens are very important.
  The public ownership of land certainly would not make any contribution to speeding up the rate of housebuilding. I have indicated that there would be prolonged and complex negotiations involved. This would inevitably slow down the rate at which new houses came on the market and I do not believe it

  323
  would make any contribution to bringing down the price of houses. We all agree that these have risen at an unacceptable rate. In considering what we can do about it, I believe a great deal of the discussion has centred on the question of new houses and the price of land. These are important elements in this complex market, but many people overlook the importance of secondhand houses in the housing market. Last year 750,000 houses changed hands and of those only 175,000, or 21 per cent., were new houses. In other words, nearly 80 per cent. of the total housing sales last year were of secondhand houses.
  I suggest that it is the price of secondhand houses which determines the price of all houses, including new houses. It is the price a developer knows he can get in the market for a new house, based on secondhand house prices, which determines the price he will pay for a piece of land. In other words, rather than the price of land being the factor determining the price of housing, it is very much the other way round. It is the prevailing level of prices in the housing market which forces up the price of land. What can we do about it? We have a relatively fixed stock of some 9 million owner-occupied houses. The annual rate of new building represents a very small addition to the total stock of houses. Taking 200,000 new houses a year that is an addition of only about 2 per cent. to the total housing stock.
  It is probably more important to think of new houses as 20 per cent. of the number of houses actually sold but it is difficult, physically, to make an appreciable addition to the housing stock. There are two possible ways by which one can decide to do something about the price of housing. One can either do something about toning down demand or, alternatively, increase the supply. There are ways of reducing the demand for housing. Obviously, the ability of people to buy houses—in other words, the effective demand—depends on how much they earn and the size of mortgage they can afford. I do not think anybody would suggest we should restrict what people earn as a means of keeping down house prices.
  Then there is the availability of mortgages. If they are freely available, house
  324
  prices tend to rise; but a fact that is often overlooked when people talk of mortgages being too freely available is that no man can take on a mortgage bigger than he can afford to service from his income. Two factors enter into this.
  There is the rate of interest on the mortgage. Clearly, one could stabilise house prices by increasing mortgage interest rates but that is unacceptable. There is the question of the tax relief on mortgage interest. If that were removed it would have the effect of lowering house prices, because people could not afford mortgages of the same size; but I have heard no suggestion from the other side that we should end tax relief on mortgage interest.
  Hon. Gentlemen opposite have suggested that there should be a ceiling above which no tax relief should be granted. There are fallacies in this argument. Let us suppose, for example, that the ceiling was £20,000. This would mean, in effect, that if one bought a house under £20,000 in value one would be entitled to tax relief, but if the value was over £20,000 one would have no tax relief. This would be tantamount to saying that a man who bought a house under £20,000 in value, taking advantage of tax relief on the standard rate of 30 per cent., would be borrowing money at 6 per cent. if he got a mortgage at 8½ per cent.; and the man buying a house costing over £20,000 would be paying the full 8½ per cent.
  The effect would be that if both men could devote £750 of their income to a mortgage, the man buying a house under £20,000 in value with the benefit of tax relief could take a mortgage of £12,500 and the man buying a house costing just over £20,000 and having to pay the full 8½ per cent. interest could raise a mortgage of only £9,000 in value. Clearly, this would take quite a lot of steam out of the market for the more expensive houses but it would not help people trying to buy houses at the bottom end of the market, particularly the young married couples whom we all want to help. There could be a paradoxical consequence contrary to what is intended in that houses under £20,000 in value could become much more popular, that sector of the market woiuld be much more active, and the market for houses above £20,000 would be more stagnant.
  Mr. Ernest G. Perry: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that in dealing with insurance companies, insurance policies and tax relief, the Inland Revenue has adopted a scheme whereby with a policy for over a certain amount, or a certain amount of premium, one gets only two-fifths? Could not such a scheme be exended?
  Mr. Trew: I will not say such schemes could not be introduced but sometimes they have altogether unexpected side-effects. On the question of reducing demand generally, there are certainly ways in which we can tone down the demand for housing which would have an effect of stabilising or lowering prices. But as a consequence of any such measure builders would be led to cut back their building plans which I do not think would help anybody. Therefore, we turn to the supply of houses and what can be done to increase it. Clearly, we can do something to release new land, but it must be land in the right places. To release an army camp in the middle of the green belt will not necessarily make a contribution to the housing problem. One can simply try to step up the rate of house building, but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland), in his opening speech, raised what is quite a pertinent point, in that one might come up against the capacity of the construction industry to build new houses. In an Adjournment debate on 17th March last year I referred to the capacity of the construction industry. The debate was about unemployment in the industry, and I made it clear that although there was unemployment there was also an acute shortage of skilled craftsmen which might become critical. The situation is not as grave as the right hon. Member for Grimsby suggested. But I believe that the time has come to think again about labour-saving methods of construction. Industrialised building got off to a false start eight years ago, and many builders burned their fingers. But I believe that the time has come to think about it again.
  There is one way in which the stock of housing can be increased dramatically and more so than by any other method such as releasing more land or stepping up the rate of house building. It is by the sale of council houses. We have
  326
  9 million owner-occupied houses and we have 5 million or 6 million council houses. We would not have to sell a very large percentage of them to make a substantial addition to the stock of owner-occupied houses and that as much as anything would help to stabilise the market by increasing the supply side of the equation.
  The housing market is a very complex one. There are no easy solutions. I believe that the best solution lies on the side of doing all that we can to increase the physical stock of owner-occupied houses by releasing more land, by building more and by the sale of council houses.
  8.22 p.m.
  Mr. Donald Stewart: I hope that the hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Trew) will forgive me if I do not take up any of his remarks, especially his questions to the Labour Party, which are for members of the official Opposition to answer. However, presently I may return to the hon. Gentleman's point about mortgages.
  As the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Swain) said, this is not the kind of debate which can be dealt with by statistics. It has been singularly free from exchanges of figures across the Floor of the House. However, I am not certain of the right of the motion's signatories to attack the Government. The Opposition motion is well enough founded, but, bearing in mind their record when in Government, they are not really in a position to attack the policies of the present administration. As the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Michael Stewart) said, no Government have solved the United Kingdom's housing problem, and on this as on other issues the message of the Conservative Government to the Opposition seems to be, "Anything you can do badly, we can do worse".
  The question of the private ownership of housing has much more relevance to Scotland than it has to England. We have fewer owner-occupied houses. Any reduction in the number of council houses is much more a problem for Scotland than it is for England. It is no use saying that young people are taking on mortgages. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) said that he did not know how they did it, but that they

  327
  were doing it. However, tens of thousands of young people in Scotland, and probably in England as well, know that if they work every year of their lives and live frugally they will never be in a position to take on mortgages, by virtue of their low wages, and they will never see the day when they own their own houses. The message for them is, "No council house. No home, either." The Government, with their built-in prejudice against council houses, must accept that young people do not have sufficient means, and one does not have to be a prophet to say that they will not have the means to ensure that there is home ownership on the wide scale that the Government talk about.
  A society which cannot guarantee decent homes for its people is a disintegrating one. It is time that the Government got down to seeing that at long last our people are housed in a proper way. I support the suggestion of the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) that a start could be made by slashing the Defence budget, which is largely a waste in any event and which churns out weapons which are obsolete almost as soon as they are produced. There will be nothing worth defending if the country's expenditure on housing is reduced.
  Dealing with this matter in a Scottish context, a short time ago there was over £1,000 million of Scottish national savings with the Treasury in London. It was lent by Scottish savers at a ridiculously low interest rate. At the same time, Scottish local authorities are borrowing money from the Public Works Loan Board at the existing high rate of interest. A way must be found to allow local authorities in Scotland to use their own funds at a reasonable rate of interest to build their own houses.
  In my constituency many crofters build their own houses, and I suggest to the Secretary of State that the Government should increase their grants for crofters' houses. I know that they have been increased since this Government took office, but they represent a very small proportion of the crofters building houses in the Outer Hebrides, and they should be extended to people other than crofters. After all, if people cannot build their
  328
  own homes the solution is a local authority house which may cost £7,000 or £8,000.
  Although houses exist in the Western Isles the Inverness County Council was shocked by a recent report showing that a large percentage had no piped water, no baths and no inside lavatories, owing, to the Government's failure to make grants for water schemes. I am glad that in recent months the Secretary of State has approved several special schemes, but many which still await his approval would turn houses into comfortable homes. When one considers the amount involved it is appalling that an amenity known to Roman Britain should be lacking to bring houses up to a reasonable standard.
  I have reservations about the prosecuting counsel in this case throwing their stones from glass houses, but I think that the charge in the motion is well proved and I shall support it in the Division Lobby.
  8.29 p.m.
  Mr. James Allason: I think that on reflection the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Donald Stewart) will realise that his suggestion that unless more money is spent on housing there will be nothing left in this country worth defending is a rather ridiculous statement. He has got the argument upside-down. Surely the argument is that unless we defend ourselves it is no good spending all our money on a marvellous welfare State.
  The hon. Member also said that on this side of the House there is a built-in prejudice against council houses. That is not so. We wish to see tenants have the right to buy their own council houses if they want to do so. That is not in any way an attempt to reduce the stock of council houses. It is an attempt to meet the wishes of those living in those houses. Why not meet the wishes of tenants? The wishes of tenants are to buy houses in which they live, on which they have spent a great deal of time, energy and money in providing carpets and curtains. They have tilled their gardens. They want to stay in those houses. They do not want to be told "If you want to own your house, you must buy some other house elsewhere". This is why we believe it right to allow

  329
  tenants to buy their homes. I hope that this will gradually sink in among hon. Members opposite, for it is an honourable and legitimate aim.
  I declare an interest in this debate as an owner and manager of property. I am very glad that we are discussing the very serious situation of housing in this country. We have a combination of high prices and a low building programme. Of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Trew) said, one thing leads to another—if there is shortage of a material the price goes up. We all remember the pledge, the promise not lightly given, a solemn pledge that no matter what circumstances intervened "we shall build 500,000 houses a year". That was the pledge given by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition at Bradford before the 1966 General Election. This is the tragedy. If we had been building since 1968 500,000 houses a year we would not be in this position because we would have a vastly increased stock of houses. I want to see us climbing back to a total of 500,000 houses a year as soon as possible.
  There is no doubt that there is a grave shortage of houses. Although we have nearly 18 million dwellings, we are not replacing them at anything like the speed that is necessary. The increase in the population has to be met. Houses are gradually deteriorating and cannot be expected to last for ever, although the improvement grant system is a great help. There is nothing like enough replacement going on nor enough building of new houses, so there is a shortage. As a result, we see panic buying. This has been the pattern over the last 12 months. House buyers have seen that land is scarce. They have panicked and said "If we don't buy a house now, we shall never be able to get one". Builders also have panicked and have rushed in saying "We cannot see our future stock of land coming forward. We can see that the public are prepared to pay high prices. We must stay in the market, and all we can do is to bid up the price of land".
  I do not accept the statements of local planning authorities which claim that there is plenty of land on the market. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. S. James A. Hill) said, the claims in the North Cheshire case of 11,000 acres of land available for build-
  330
  ing proved totally incorrect. Earlier, we had a similar investigation in Hertfordshire, and once again the claim that there was ample building land in the county was proved incorrect.
  It is not surprising that local planning authorities want to claim that there is plenty of building land, because all the pressures are against providing more building land. At local level, each individual wants to house himself and does not want further building around him. We all know how in our constituencies there are pressures to prevent further building wherever it might be.
  That again is reflected at county level, where there is the tendency to say "We have done enough to house people." I must except Hertfordshire from this because it has done more than any other county. Naturally, it says that the housing should be done elsewhere. Unfortunately, every other county has the same idea. While it may be justified in Hertfordshire, it is not so everywhere else. The result is that people say "We will buy only the minimum amount of land essential for the building programme."
  In addition, local planning authorities do not really know the land situation. They do not know what land is built on and what the position is about various planning permissions which have been granted. The result is that insufficient land comes forward for building. My right hon. and learned Friend sends out circulars urging that more land should be put on to the market. There is little response. I reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Idris Owen) that the Ministry must do something more than send out circulars.
  We suggest that the Ministry should send a team to these areas which are not coming forward with sufficient building land. The Ministry must know the worst offenders. A land monitoring commissioner is a possibility. Let him go to these areas and then report to the Minister on county planning authorities which are failing in their duty. If this is done it will bring about a significant improvement in the amount of land on the market. Prices will come down, and this is what we want. The price of houses will be reflected in that decrease.

  331
  When more land is available more houses can be built and the panic of house purchasers, rushing forward to buy anything because they are scared of further price increases, will end. House prices will stabilise. Rising prices are a symptom of shortage. My right hon. and learned Friend must insist on more land releases. This is a serious challenge which must be met soon.
  8.38 p.m.
  Mrs. Doris Fisher: No one on the Government side of the House has taken upon themselves the responsibility, which is entirely the Government's, for the disastrous housing record. We have had a lot of specious arguments, a lot of excuses, but no one has accepted the responsibility which belongs to the party opposite.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) has said, we have had the biggest cutback in housing subsidies made by any Government since the war. The Secretary of State gave us a smokescreen about housing subsidies. It is a smokescreen because the cutback represents a definite cut in money amounting to nearly £500 million over the next four years. It is not a saving. This must result in a reduction in the availability of houses for those most in need. For hon. Members opposite to talk with their tongues in their cheeks about helping those in greatest need is sheer hypocrisy, because they supported the Housing Finance Act knowing full well that it would lead to a cutback in a housing programme that could only help the less fortunate in the community.
  But there are large local authorities—and mine is one of them—which have massive slum-clearance schemes. We find time and time again that we have to face a land shortage. Time and time again we have pressurised the Secretary of State for overspill. Time and time again it seems to take him months and months and years and years to come forward with his recommendations. When the previous Secretary of State was in office Birmingham always wanted to go into the Worcestershire area. I do not know whether the previous Secretary of State did not like the Birmingham people, or was thinking primarily of his own seat at
  332
  the next General Election, but he was very hesitant about letting us go out into the wonderful pastures of Worcestershire.
  We have this highly speculative commodity, land. The Government can freeze all kinds of things, but not land. I would have thought that this Tory Government, capable as they are supposed to be, should have been able to do this very simply. We on this side of the House hear trade unionists being assailed by a plethora of clichés and platitudes designed to make them feel very guilty if they utter a word about the freeze; they are consequently labelled unpatriotic. But it seems as though those people who deal in land and property speculation are not guilty of acting against the national interest. It appears that profits can transcend patriotism, hut not in the case of trade unionists.
  I would like to bring to the attention of the Minister and support the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand). One of the main causes of the lack of housebuilding and the figures from the large conurbations has been the problem which my hon. Friend the Member for Easington mentioned—the impossibility of obtaining tenders for housebuilding contracts. With fixed price tendering at a time of escalating prices there has been a definite reluctance on the part of contractors even to put in a tender for a contract, and in the city of Birmingham it has not been unusual to invite as many as 20 firms to submit a tender and have one or two contractors put in a price. There must be something in that for the Secretary of State to answer.
  It is no good his trying to delude himself by saying that he was not aware of the difficulties concerning the cost yardstick. At a meeting of the Birmingham City Council today a report from the housing manager on behalf of the housing committee came forward. I should like to read a few lines from that report about the cost yardstick. It said:
  "This problem"—
  of the cost yardstick—
  "started to become acute towards the end of 1971 and by March 1972, when there was a very sharp escalation of building costs, it had started to become impossible for your Committee"—
  the housing committee—
  "to obtain tenders within the yardstick level."

  333
  This is the point I want the Secretary of State to listen to very carefully:
  "The strongest possible representations were made to the Department of the Environment upon this matter."
  That was in March 1972, when this sharp escalation of building costs was very apparent, but it was not until November—eight months later, when the housing building programme in Birmingham had come to a complete standstill—that the Department of the Environment and the Secretary of State decided that they might be able to permit some kind of market allowance. I might go so far as to say that for the housing cost yardstick to be of any importance it will have to be increased from 45 per cent. to 50 per cent.
  I was interested in one thing in the amendment being put forward by the Government on the encouragement of local authority housing in areas of stress. Let me quote two figures. Last year Birmingham City Council built only 1,444 houses.
  Mr. Julius Silverman: I think my hon. Friend will agree that in Birmingham the basic yardstick plus the market allowance comes to less than 90 per cent. of the price. That is the problem that we face, even with the increased market allowance.
  Mrs. Fisher: I agree with my hon. Friend. The problem that arises is that now that the Department is raising the market allowance a considerable amount of money has to come from the ratepayers to make up the leeway. The Prime Minister asked local authorities to keep down rates but the Department of the Environment is piling up problems for large local authorities.
  In 1972 Birmingham City Council completed 1,444 houses, while in the last year of the Labour Government completions amounted to nearly 6,000, and last year we were able to clear only just over 2,500 slum houses, compared with 5,000 in previous years.
  We have heard comments from the benches opposite about the sale of council houses. One hon. Gentleman opposite said that the sale of council houses stabilised the market. I give these figures and this document to the Secretary of State to enable him to consider whether
  334
  the market has been stabilised. A purpose-built council house was sold to the tenant for £2,500. Speculative estate agents are now moving into a field where they have never operated before, namely, council housing. An agent offered £3,500 to that owner. He accepted the offer, and within a month the agent resold the house for £6,000. I do not know how that stabilises the market or explains the Government's observations about council house tenants queueing up to live in their palaces for ever and ever. As soon as they become owner-occupiers they join the rat race and start moving on.
  The worst example is that of a sitting tenant who was sold his house for £2,145. Along came the shark estate agent, as early as 23rd October 1972, and offered him £4,800 for his property, which he accepted. The next day the agent sold the house for exactly £1,000 more, for £5,800. Is that what is meant by stabilising the market in council houses?
  The Government should be condemned for forcing families to live in slum properties for longer than is necessary. The Government should be condemned for their failure to provide any substantial housing for the homeless. They should also be condemned for allowing young married couples to be at the mercy of the land speculator and to have to pay the exorbitant prices that are being demanded for new properties.
  8.50 p.m.
  Mr. Cecil Parkinson: I hope that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mrs. Doris Fisher) will forgive me for not following her interesting remarks, but I want to comment on the speech of the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Michael Stewart). In the housing debate a few months ago he produced a very bad idea. He is obviously so proud of it that he has produced it again today. His idea is that if a person buys a house and keeps it empty with a view to subsequent resale at a profit the local authority should have the first option on buying that house. His reasoning is that that would ensure that the community received a share of the benefit of any increase in value. If the right hon. Gentleman has only in mind the community getting a share of the increase in value, I have news for him. The community

  335
  already gets a share of the increase in value.
  Hon Gentlemen on the Opposition benches laughed when my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) said that anybody who buys a house with a view to resale is trading and, as a trader, is liable to income tax and, if necessary, surtax on that income. Although it might be inconvenient and contrary to the preconceptions of hon. Gentlemen opposite, that happens to be the state of the law. Any person who is proved to have bought a house with a view to resale and the making of a profit will pay not just capital gains tax; he will pay income tax and, if he is doing this on a large scale, surtax. Those two taxes combined could be at the rate of 75 per cent. Whatever else that achieves, it ensures that anyone who is carrying on this operation—and it is a tiny section of the community——
  Mr. Ernest G. Perry: Has the hon. Gentleman seen tonight's article in the Evening Standard, in which it is reported that in the City of Westminster 13,000 properties are empty and are being kept empty for subsequent resale at a profit?
  Mr. Parkinson: My point is in no way affected by that comment. The right hon. Member for Fulham said that the community should get a share of any increase. It should please hon. Gentlemen opposite to hear that the community already gets a share, and a substantial one if that operation is being carried out by way of a business.
  The right hon. Member for Fulham spoke of boroughs being allowed to buy and develop land in other boroughs. This has happened in Enfield. A borough has tried to put a compulsory purchase order on a piece of land in Enfield. That is being resisted by the council which already has plans for housing on that land.
  I have seen the other side of this. In Potters Bar there are two estates which belong to outside boroughs. I have in mind particularly the Haringey estate, where the situation is not, in my opinion, satisfactory. The people who live there do not have an opportunity to elect a representative on the Haringey council and they are represented only on the Potters
  336
  Bar council which is not their landlord. This gives rise to a sort of second-class citizenship, part disenfranchisement and the creation of a community within a community.
  The hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), tried to stir up some spurious indignation about the Housing Finance Act. Even he is finding it difficult to do that now. In an area close to mine, in which were living 16,000 council tenants, only 18 people attended a meeting called to discuss rents, to which tremendous publicity had been given. A meeting held to discuss the sale of council houses two weeks later was attended by 200 people. It is time that Opposition Members stopped misrepresenting and trying to mislead their constituents about the Housing Finance Act. The facts are now coming through, and they are not as they were alleged to be.
  We listen to Opposition Members knocking away at the Government's record. The Government, it is true, would be the first to admit they would have liked to see more houses built. I would, however, recommend hon. Members opposite to read a letter in the Financial Times of 5th February, in which the writer, who happens to be a director of a very large company in this sphere, points out that in 1972 about 250,000 houses came on to the market improved to a standard that made them almost as good as new, and 319,000 new houses—an addition to the good housing stock of 569,000 sound houses. That is a considerable number of houses.
  Opposition Members who sit and sneer should take a good look at the record; the programme they inherited when they came to power, and what they did with it. They should stop sneering about 1972, a year in which 569,000 new and improved houses were added to the housing stock.
  One hears a great deal from the Opposition that they are desperately concerned about the human problems in housing. So are we all. Politicians do not build houses, and housing debates do not get houses built. What gets houses built is a strong building industry, with confidence in its future.
  After their six years in office, Opposition Members left behind them a decimated building industry which had its confidence shaken, and in which more

  337
  than 7,000 builders had gone bankrupt. If hon. Gentlemen do not believe me let me tell them that I, unlike them—and this shows how times change—had the job of going to the head office of one of the great banks to apologise for the fact that a company for whom I was acting as financial adviser had 42 unsold houses. The company could not sell the houses, so what did it do? It cut back on its housing programme. Opposition Members who pour scorn on the situation today should look back on their time in office when the building industry was cutting back its programme in response to pressure from the Government. It may be uncomfortable, but when they sit and shed their crocodile tears about the homeless, they should remember that they did their best to make it impossible for the industry which builds houses to get them built. That was their legacy—an industry with its confidence shaken and a housing programme cut to ribbons.
  Finally, I wish to make a few comments about the present state of affairs. I welcome the Government's pressure to get more land released. I like the idea of the regional study, of taking a global view of an area and finding the land. The idea of pressuring the nationalised industries and the forces to release surplus land is an extremely good one. I hope the Government will continue to push to get the maximum amount of land on the market and also to push ahead with their plans to recruit more planning officers. There is no doubt that the building industry is forced to hold bigger land banks than it would like to, which pushes up the cost of housing because of the slowness in obtaining planning permissions. This is a very important point. Although here in the House we talk of improvements, in practice the process is still extremely sluggish, and much land is still not made available as quickly as it should and could be. A speeding up of this process would be a major contribution to accelerating the building programme and helping to contain costs.
  One of the major mistakes the Opposition made when in Government was to persist in talking about housing as a top priority, but to give orders to the banks to treat housebuilders as the lowest possible priority borrowers.
  338
  This Government are in danger of making the same mistake. I have received letters from builders in my constituency who have been told by their banks that housebuilding is now regarded as a low-priority for lending. That can do great damage to the housing programme. It is a simple, practical point that we cannot have housebuilding as a top priority programme and lending to house-builders as a low priority. Yet that is how the banks have started to interpret the recent suggestion from the Bank of England. It is an idea that the banks should be disabused of as quickly as possible.
  No one can be smug about the present situation. The Government, for their part, can point to progress over a whole range of fields. The Opposition have had their opportunity—they chose the subject for today's debate—to talk about their plans and what they would do. We have heard from them about land nationalisation. Will it produce another acre of building land more quickly? Will it do anything to accelerate the housing programme? The answer is definitely, "No". Will it make land cheaper? The answer is again, "No". After 2½ years in opposition an addled egg is finally laid by the rather addled hen which is the Opposition, and it turns out to be to nationalise land. That will not help the homeless. It will do nothing for the housing programme and nothing for the price of houses.
  9.2 p.m.
  Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: Although I have only a few minutes, I want to say a few words about housing demand.
  I do not accept the view of the hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Parkinson) that speculation in housing is not significant in affecting the demand for housing. That view is not shared by his two hon. Friends, the hon. Members for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) and Stockport, North (Mr. Idris Owen). I have in my hands a pamphlet written by them and their hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. S. James A. Hill), in which they say:
  "Bank managers, solicitors, columnists, and others, unite in their advice to buy a home, to get on the moving staircase of owner-occupation and get on quickly. If you have one, change it for a more expensive one, up to the limit of your credit. Inflation will

  339
  make manageable the apparently crippling debt, When the demand generated by these attitudes is made effective, as it has been for the past year or so, by easy availability of finance, it cannot be thought surprising that supply has not responded sufficiently and prices have shot up."
  That argument was supported with greater authority at the conference organised by Shelter in November by the learned speakers there, who came to perhaps not quite the same conclusion as the Conservative Members I have mentioned. The hon. Gentlemen's conclusion was that the remedy lay in having more land released for private housebuilding—either farmland or land which had been appropriated by local authorities for their housing needs. They said that local authorities should be questioned closely as to the true nature of their housing waiting lists and
  "relevant factors for discussion would be the extent of local authority land retentions against future needs."
  About £350 million a year is going into public subsidisation of the demand for housing land. Inevitably, if there is no increase in the supply and a demand is subsidised, prices will rise. I shall not seek to elaborate on that, except to quote briefly one of the speakers at the Shelter conference, Mr. Richard Harrington, lecturer in economics at Manchester University, who said that the housing problem
  "is largely due to a fundamental error in housing policy in seeking to subsidise demand in the face of supply fixed in the short term. This has had the consequence of creating a situation of continually rising house prices, which has encouraged those with the means to do so to increase their own consumption of housing resources."
  So long as we continue to subsidise demand and not supply we shall have a situation of housing stress, housing shortage and rapidly escalating land prices. This is not a party political issue. Both parties have been doing this for a very long time.
  The Labour Party has considered limitation of loans to owner-occupiers and special exemptions from capital gains tax. But these are not practical politics. The best policy would be a reversion to Schedule A tax, which would be balanced by tax remission elsewhere or by appropriate increases in expenditure elsewhere. That would redress the balance,
  340
  which is at present exceedingly favourable to owner-occupiers and unfavourable to those who are tenants and is providing excessive demand in one section and driving up prices.
  Demand is only one side of the equation. Supply is another factor. I agree with all hon. Members who say that we need to build more houses. We know how little the Government have done in that direction from the figures to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) referred. However, there are measures which could be taken immediately and would increase the supply. It is quoted in the Evening Standard that there are 13.000 dwellings lying empty in Westminster alone. Of that number, 7,200 have been empty for a year. In the borough of Kensington one sees wherever one goes—I have no statistics—houses and flats which have been standing empty for months or years. That housing has not found buyers because the prices being demanded are attrociously high. Even the people who wish to move into Kensington are getting sticky about buying them.
  The proposal for penal rating of empty property, suggested by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, is one of the essential means of increasing the supply. Another step would be to change the grant situation which prevents local authorities from repairing or improving properties which have a useful life but which need some money spent on them—and there are a great many in my area—in areas where there is the likelihood that comprehensive redevelopment will take place or where land may be needed for a school. It is not possible as the law and grant structure stand at present—I hope the Secretary of State will consider this—for local authorities to spend money or give grants for the improvement of these properties by housing associations or by others.
  That situation should be investigated as one of urgency. It would enable a great many of these properties to be used instead of standing empty while families are in desperate housing stress. I hope that the Government will also take steps to encourage local authorities to do this. Local authorities should also be encouraged to allow properties that they have standing empty to be used by squatters or others who can provide a

  341
  temporary use for that accommodation.
  The need to change the structure of improvement grants to ensure that they are providing for the improvement of conditions of people who are at present living in the stress areas of the cities and not to make luxury accommodation which will stand empty waiting for rich people to move into them has already been referred to. What is happening in London and many other stress areas makes the improvement grant system as much of a curse there as it is a blessing elsewhere.
  Perhaps the most urgent policy which the Government can adopt immediately is to encourage local authorities to embark upon an active policy of buying empty or tenanted property and to ensure that low rented accommodation is not driven out of our central city areas. It is disappearing with terrifying speed. Unless the Government take some action to encourage local authorities which are reluctant to do so to buy these properties, and to approve compulsory purchase orders to enable those authorities to buy houses before they disappear from the low rented market, we shall have only middle-class regions in the centres of our cities.
  9.10 p.m.
  Mr. William Ross: I must remind the House that we are debating a Motion of censure which is framed as follows:
  "That this House censures Her Majesty's Government for its disastrous record of combining the biggest ever increase in the price of housing with the lowest rate of housing completions for a decade."
  Therefore, hon. Members who suggest that it is our duty today to tell the Government what to do should pay attention to what we are debating.
  I have listened patiently and carefully to practically every speech delivered today and I have not yet heard one Conservative Member stand up and defend the Government against our censure motion. They have not sought to defend the Government's disastrous record in face of the increases in house prices. They have not denied it—for the simple reason that it is a fact.
  Speaker after speaker has suggested that they are sorry about the situation, that they lament it and regard it as serious, but they do not deny it. The ques-
  342
  tion we have been debating is "Has it happened?", and the answer from hon. Gentleman opposite has been "Yes, it has". Certainly, no hon. Gentleman has sought to deny that under the Tories we have seen the lowest rate of housing completions for a decade. No hon. Member opposite has denied that, for again it is true.
  The most complacent speech we heard today was that made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Environment. He showed no appreciation of the concern expresssed by his own back benchers, and they in turn showed no great confidence in the ability even to substantiate the claim in the Government amendment. The Secretary of State was misleading when he referred to the attitude of the Opposition on fair rents. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North East (Mr. Swain) quoted the 1967 circular on this point. The Secretary of State could have quoted from his own manifesto dealing with rents and local authority housing policies. In those days it was "freedom, freedom all the way", but since the election the picture has been very different. When the Secretary of State said that there were no bonds to hold back the local authorities in their housing policies, he must have been far too concerned with European matters at the time when we were debating housing legislation. Local authorities are now completely hamstrung, and it is no argument at all to suggest that changed financial circumstances have had no connection with the fall in local authority house building or with what I fear is to come; namely a much more disastrous fall.
  What is the situation that the country now faces? I need not go into all the figures.
  Mr. Swain: Why not?
  Mr. Ross: Because we have not the time. It was a little dispiriting to see the Conservative Whips organising Conservative Members just to come into the Chamber and say a few words and trying to make a show for the Government. It was a sad performance. The plain fact is that the figures for Great Britain show a fall in the number of houses built, and the situation in Scotland shows an even greater fall.
  Mr. Edward Taylor: Why?
  Mr. Ross: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) had his opportunity in one of his rare visits to the House during the day. He has hardly been present during the debate. I am told that he has been at an important meeting. He had the opportunity to make a speech, and he could have told us and defended his Government. He did not. He spoke about problem families in certain areas of Glasgow. That is something that is not new and did not start in the last 10 years.
  In Scotland during the years while Labour was in power we embarked upon and carried through the biggest housing drive ever known in Scotland. In under six years, and with the overlap of the plans we left, nearly one-quarter of a million houses were completed—year after year a record. In 1970 the Conservatives completed the houses we had left under construction. If I recollect correctly the figures for May, more than 50,000 houses were under construction in Scotland. Completions in 1970 were 43,000; in 1971 just over 40,000; in 1972—when we come to the present Government's efforts—the figure is 31,900.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman will not even make a guess at what completions will be next year. There was a time when the Conservatives used to suggest what their aim was. I can well remember that, as I was questioning the Secretary of State at the time as to what their target for building houses was. In 1963 it was 35,000 a year. Not until long after that did they even raise it to 40,000, albeit they never achieved 40,000 in their 13 years. In 1953 in Scotland 39,000 houses were built, and that remained the record until the Labour Government came in. It went down, until in 1962 it was only 26,000. They are getting back to form.
  Then there is introduced a suggestion in the amendment that they are concentrating on the stress areas. Let us look at the stress areas in England. What do we find? For South-East Lancashire's public sector, we find a drop in starts of 21 per cent. and in completions a drop of 28 per cent. Let us look at Merseyside. The Government will not
  344
  cure the problems of Merseyside with private ownership and the building of bungalows. Let that sink in. Perhaps the Secretary of State will say how many private houses were built in Glasgow last year and whether that number will be built next year. For all the great changes, the problems of the people of Glasgow will not be solved by private ownership. That could not be.
  Where are the stress areas of England and Wales, and how are they faring? West Midlands starts are down by 33 per cent. and completions by 46 per cent.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer: On the question of Merseyside, my right hon. Friend will be interested to note that at present Merseyside has just on 8,000 building operatives unemployed, of whom nearly 2,000 are highly skilled workers.
  Mr. Ross: Of course, there is scope there.
  The Minister spoke about a freedom to local authorities to get on with it. If he saw that followed through, we should not have disastrous figures such as that. Even greater London, with an increase in starts of only 3 per cent. and with completions down by 13 per cent., can take no great satisfaction. What is suggested in the amendment is about great improvements in respect of private building. One of the things I fear about private ownership is that with the tremendous increase in the cost of housing, particularly over the last six months, there will be a resistance in respect of purchase and of provision, and not just the question of land. The figures for the last quarter of 1972, given by the Minister in his bulletin, show that even in respect of private ownership there is a reduction compared with the same quarter the year before. It does not augur well for the future.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland knows that the Labour Government created records even on the provision of houses for home ownership, and I am glad that it has continued; but he will know quite well—he might tell his hon. Friend what has happened in the Scottish Office—that Ministers went round Scotland ensuring that local authorities got on with their housing schemes and also made provision years in advance for the land they required not only for their

  345
  own public authority needs but for private needs.
  A lot of humbug was talked by hon. Gentlemen opposite today, particularly in respect of the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Michael Stewart), who drew attention to the unsatisfactory position about houses being kept empty. He spoke about not ordinary change respecting houses but some personal reason. My right hon. Friend pinpointed a house in which he lived and noted how often the sale board went up and how seldom anyone went to live in it. That house was being used solely for the purpose of making money—speculation. This is happening in other places. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, North (Mr. Douglas-Mann) virtually pointed to the same kind of thing in his constituency. It is happening all over the country.
  The Government cannot run away from the fact that they gave pledges about the prices of private homes, and they have failed to deal with an ever-worsening situation. The figures were given by my hon. Friend. He instanced a rise of £2,700 on an average house which two and a half years ago cost £6,500. In some parts of the country it is worse.
  Let us not think that the situation in Scotland is any better. I have been studying the local paper over the weekend. Let the Under-Secretary of State for Development appreciate this, because it is in his constituency. However, I will not give free advertising to where the place is. This is an upstairs flat in a house that is being turned into six flats. I could even give the figure that was paid for that house. Each flat comprises a lounge, bedroom, boxroom, kitchen, and bathroom, and the price sought is about £10,500. Of course, it has a nice view, and it is near the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock. That may be why the price is so low!
  On another page the hon. Gentleman will find yet another: a modernised flat of two apartments, kitchen and bathroom, £5,000. There is a nice view of Falkland Junction. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) will know exactly what I mean. I do not know whether the Under-Secretary knows it at all well. I merely challenge him as to exactly where this place is. But these
  346
  are fantastic prices that people are paying for tenement flats not in the most salubrious areas. It is happening in Glasgow and all over the place and the Government are doing nothing about it. However, they are freezing wages, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mrs. Doris Fisher) said, the Government can freeze everything except certain prices including the cost of housing.
  The Government stand condemned in that respect. The Secretary of State for Scotland as well as the Secretary of State for the Environment are guilty; but what will be done? According to what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, absolutely nothing will be done. Suggestions were made by his back benchers. I think that the hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Idris Owen) was even more annoyed at his Government's performance and at their failure to take action to give the building industry confidence than I was. Is he satisfied that we have a building programme? No local authority in the country is satisfied that the way is clear for a building programme.
  The escalating prices reflect not just the rising cost of land. I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will appreciate that when house prices go up to the extent that they have done it demonstrates a lack of confidence in the value of money in the near future. That is the most serious aspect of all. People go in for "stane an' lime", as we say in Scotland, because the value of that will persist and be maintained when everything else is gone. So, the position is even more serious than any Tory is prepared to admit. Certain hon. Members suggested that there should be a special tax on speculation. Someone described land speculators as the "barrow boys of the City". That is unfair to barrow boys, who pursue an honest trade.
  But when we suggest that there must be a greatly improved effort by local authorities with financial support coming from the Government and in every other way, hon. Members on the Government side sneer. Yet they realise that in certain respects only a local authority can sort out the priorities. They must appreciate, however, that in private building it is money, and money alone, that sets the priorities.

  347
  I was glad to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) bringing humanity into the statistics. He explained the effect on families and the effect on opportunities for children.
  If land is as scarce as some Conservatives say, the only way to solve the problem is to ensure that local authorities have full control of that land, and that means by public ownership. [Interruption.] I shall not run away from that one. I am not surprised at the hon. Member for Stockport, North losing his temper because of his Government's performance. The priorities of his party are something that he knows all about.
  Mr. Idris Owen Mr. Idris Owen rose——
  Mr. Ross: I shall not give way because I do not have much time. [Interruption.] I promised to sit down by a certain time, and I do not want to take any longer.
  Mr. Owen Mr. Owen rose——
  Mr. Ross: My reference was to the fact that the hon. Member showed concern and stated that the building industry had no confidence in the continuation of the building programme——
  Mr. Owen: In 1968.
  Mr. Ross: The hon. Member and I took part in the Committee stage of the Bill to denationalise State pubs, one of the earliest actions taken by the Government. That is the kind of house to which they gave priority. As far as I can see, there is no satisfaction, even in the Housing Finance Act, that they will achieve what the Government sought to achieve by much more ruthless means long ago. In 1973 we have people actually homeless or people living in conditions which would have been a disgrace to us 20 years ago. When we can send people to the moon and bring them safely hack, we cannot provide a decent home for every family in this country.
  I think of the petty sort of squabbles that have taken place in this House in relation to whether we should provide housing by this or that means. We should use every possible means, but this Government out of fear of finance have deliberately gone out to destroy the local authority programme. That speech of 27th October 1970 was cheered by every
  348
  hon. Gentleman on that side of the House:
  "I come next to housing. The present system of subsidies, rents and rebates will be entirely refashioned. … By the middle years of the decade this reform will be transforming housing finance and should lead to a saving in public expenditure of £100 million to £200 million a year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th October, 1970; Vol. 805, c. 41.]
  Every other part of that speech has been torn up. This part was one of the most evil parts of it because it destroyed the possibility of local authorities in this country getting on with house building programmes, and has cut them down. The submissions to the Scottish Office for the last quarter of 1972 were only just over 1,000; I believe the figure was 1,056. The average in normal years was between 7,000 and 10,000. We have a bunching up as a result of what happened on 1st December, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Ewing) has said, come 1975 the public authority programme will be an absolute scandal and a disgrace. We should stop it as quickly as possible by voting for this motion of censure.
  9.33 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gordon Campbell): The debate has provided an opportunity to discuss a whole range of housing subjects, and hon. Members on both sides of the House have availed themselves of it. We have heard of problems and situations from hon. Members representing constituencies from the Outer Hebrides to the South Coast. But it has been incredibly difficult to believe that the debate has been taking place upon a motion of censure. The motion, in its terms, is straining vainly to achieve effect by bringing together two proposals which are irrelevant to the Government's record. The number of houses completed—that is the reference to completions—is, of course, dependent upon the number of approvals decisions taken two years earlier. In the private sector there has been a steady increase in completions since 1970.
  Obviously, when he was moving this motion the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) was acutely conscious of the weakness in it. I am sure that this was not due to his impending departure to take part in the radio programme "It's Your Line". I hope for his sake that he was given a better

  349
  theme to speak to there, because moving this facile and misleading motion was definitely not his line. It is odd that hon. Members opposite should try to make something of the completion figures for 1972, for they will find that this form of argument is a boomerang. Completions in 1972 in the public sector depended upon decisions in 1970, and criticism of the reduced number of houses simply reflects upon decisions taken in a year for part of which the Labour Government were in office. Hon. Gentlemen opposite consistently allowed the number of public sector house approvals in Scotland to run down between 1967 and 1970. Completions in 1972 represented approvals in 1970. But what point are right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite trying to make from that? They noticeably failed to tell us during this debate why they allowed approvals in the public sector in Scotland to fall by 5,000 between 1967 and 1968, and by a further 13,000 between 1969 and 1970. Was that because they considered that Scotland's housing needs had largely been met?
  The important point for the House is the number of starts in the past three years. Over Great Britain as a whole, taking both the public and the private sectors, there has been a steady increase. In 1970 the total number of starts was 319,000. In 1971 it was 344,000, and in 1972 it was 350,000. The rate of house completions is irrelevant. If anything, it is a condemnation of the policies of the Labour Government before they left office.
  In Scotland we have taken steps to reverse the falling trend in the public sector. As a result, the number of houses approved in 1972 was 5,000 more than in 1971, and over 7,500 more than in 1970. This is an increase in approvals in Scotland, in those two years, of 37 per cent.
  In the private sector there has been a great increase in England, Wales and Scotland. In Scotland, 1971—the last year for which figures are available—was a record year. More private houses were built in that year than in any previous year in Scotland's history.
  The steady increase in starts between 1970 and 1972 presents a brighter picture for the future, but I do not intend to follow the lamentable example of the Labour Government in setting targets.
  350
  The effect was to distort the housing policy. Our aim, now that the immediate post-war shortage has been ended, is not to base the Government's building programme upon a game of numbers. We intend to meet the housing need, whenever and wherever it arises, by all the means at our disposal. This can be done in a number of ways other than the building of new houses.
  Under the Government's Housing Acts last year, local authorities were given incentives to build as many houses as they considered they needed. Slum clearance and obsolescent housing remain outstanding problems. Both sides of the House are agreed about that. But for the first time we have introduced a subsidy specifically for slum clearance and again there has been a record in Scotland. In 1971 there were more houses closed or demolished and more slum clearance than in any previous year in Scotland. When the figures become available we expect 1972 also to have been a very good year.
  At the same time, many old houses in Scotland which are below modern standards can still provide good homes with the necessary improvement. We intend to see that many of those houses are improved with the aid of grant. The higher rate of grants that we made available under the Housing Act 1971 have had a stimulating effect, and in Scotland have established a record. More houses were improved in 1971 than in any previous year in Scotland, and 1972 shows every sign of overtaking it.
  The Labour Government's proposal—which the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) again endorsed today—for dealing with land and the price of houses is threatened nationalisation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Trew) pointed out, the Land Commission was totally ineffective, and its demise was not lamented. Then there was the device of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources. I wonder how many of my right hon. and hon. Friends even remember it. It was created at the end of 1964 and abolished in 1966. It was simply an election gimmick.
  As my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment pointed out at the beginning of the debate, the increase in house prices has been caused by the growing desire for

  351
  home ownership, which has been encouraged by both sides of the House. The chief remedy is to make more houses available by building and improvement. My right hon. and learned Friend announced further measures to increase the supply of land for building south of the Border. In Scotland the problems of land and house prices have been felt less, and I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) that the additional acreage of land zoned in Scotland during 1972 appears to be more than sufficient to support the current rate of building for housing for owner-occupation.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Idris Owen) raised the question of the need for planning authorities to release more land. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that it is essential that planning authorities should be ready to release land for development for private houses at the right time and in the right place. [An HON. MEMBER: "And the right price."] My right hon. Friend has asked the planning authorities in the areas of special stress to let him have details of land on which housing could start in the next five years. These details are now coming in. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction will be following up this information by visiting the authorities concerned in order to establish with them that the supply of land which they propose to make available is in fact sufficient to sustain the expanding building programme that is needed.
  My hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) and Southampton, Test (Mr. S. James A. Hill) raised questions about the green belt. I have noted what they said about possible ways of reconciling the need for green belts in England and the needs of housing policy. I am sure that the Minister will wish to consider very carefully what was said on this difficult and important issue.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury also raised the question of the capacity of the construction industry. Certainly, its capacity could be a limiting factor in a programme of expansion. In particular, there may be shortages of craftsmen in certain trades and in certain areas, as there are now. The industry itself can cope with these problems
  352
  through training schemes. It will attract recruits if it is seen to be prosperous. I am glad to say that in the first 11 months of 1972 there were 15 per cent. more apprentices registered in the construction industry than in the same period in 1971. This, I know, will be of interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test, who mentioned the shortage of skilled men.
  I have said that the last Government embarked on a futile numbers game playing to the gallery of the electorate by setting target figures. This was at a time when there were no longer the massive shortages experienced after the war. One result, which answers a point made by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock, was that a situation has been created where a large number of local authority houses are lying empty when there are, none the less, applicants waiting on housing lists. In some areas in Scotland many empty houses have been standing vacant, particularly in Dundee and Paisley.
  This is an urgent problem. It presents a salutary warning for the future that local housing policies must be realistic and responsive to the attitudes and practical needs of potential tenants. The policy of building anything anywhere desperately to meet a target was not appropriate after the first post-war shortages had been met. It meant that houses were being built in the wrong place and at the wrong time. In Dundee, 1,600 council houses are lying empty. Not all of them are available for letting at the moment, but clearly the number for which tenants could be obtained and which are available for letting can be measured in hundreds. This kind of problem should not be repeated in the future if a more careful assessment of real needs can be made.
  These houses are losing about £160,000 a year in rents and rates for the corporation. So available are the empty council houses that the Labour group can afford to have one of them rented to the campaign committee for the Labour candidate in the forthcoming by-election. I understand that it is conveniently opposite a polling station. Never was there so far-fetched and expensive a way of providing a headquarters for a doomed campaign!

  353
  Another unfortunate effect of the numbers game, created by the last Government, is the concrete jungles. We have them in Scotland, unfortunately. There are no empty spaces for playgrounds, and no thought has been given to community life because the object was to build them as quickly as possible to meet some target.
  Mr. Ross Mr. Ross rose——
  Mr. Campbell: The right hon. Gentleman did not give way, and I do not propose to do so. The Leader of the Opposition must take his share of the blame. Where is the Leader of the Opposition? He tried to start the numbers game, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) pointed out. It was he who said, "This is not a lightly given promise, it is a pledge," when speaking of the 500,000 houses target. Besides completely missing that target, that programme caused many mistakes to be made in what was a purely political gambit.
  In moving this motion the right hon. Member for Grimsby spoke critically of what he described as an upward pressure on rents. He forgot that when his party was in Government and applying a prices and incomes policy it set a limit on wage increases in the public sector of 37½p. This is not so different, five or six years later, from the figure of 50p in our Housing Acts. There was no national rent rebate scheme at that time.
  The 1972 Housing Acts for England, Scotland and Wales, were milestones in the progress towards better housing.
  Dr. Dickson Mahon: Millstones.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: Tombstones.
  Mr. Campbell: The Opposition did all they could to delay the passing of these Acts, which have achieved important advances. They gave rent allowances to private tenants for the first time. They extended the rebate schemes, they made subsidy payable for all kinds of housing expenditure including increases in the cost of repairs and management and in interest charges.
  So they began a gradual reduction of the deficits—which were massive in Scot-
  354
  land—in the housing revenue accounts, previously borne by the ratepayers. In Scotland the greatest help is to come within the next four years and the level of £40 million at present borne by Scottish ratepayers should be halved in that period. In the meantime, more help will be forthcoming from the Exchequer while less is having to be produced by the ratepayers.
  The Leader of the Opposition must again take responsibility for starting the synthetic and unnecessary alarm about council house rents. In his speech during the debate on the Address in the last Session, commenting on the policies which we had said would be in our Housing Acts, he declared that the proposals would on average double council house rents.
  Mr. Frank Allaun: That was your document.
  Mr. Campbell: Yes. I can quote the hon. Gentleman on this. He said the same thing.
  Mr. Allaun: I did.
  Mr. Campbell: But he was completely unaware that this is exactly what had happened in the five-and-a-half years when the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock was Secretary of State for Scotland. It was an embarrassment to the right hon. Gentleman. At the beginning of his period of office the average rent was 71p and when he left it was £1·42p. The right hon. Member for Grimsby wrote in The Guardian of 15th December 1971, when the Housing Bills were before us:
  "Council tenants in any local authority area should not pay a total rent income which exceeds the historic cost of providing the housing in which they live."
  I was interested in that because that was the principle in the Scottish Bill, but not in the English and Welsh Bills. That did not stop the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock and his hon. Friends from opposing this principle in the Scottish Bill. Was this sheer perversity or simply playing politics on rents? How does the Labour Party judge the success of its policies? Does it consider that it has done a good job when it has succeeded in thoroughly frightening pensioners or lower-paid tenants over rent increases, causing unnecessary alarm in most cases because of the generous new rent rebate and allowance schemes? If this is its

  355
  measure of political success it is a contemptible standard.
  The Labour Party should not be surprised that its misrepresentation of the effects of the Housing Acts, together with its party propaganda, has caused unnecessary anxiety among those whose family budgets are most sensitive to changes in rent payments. No doubt it was largely such misleading Labour Party propaganda when the Bills were before Parliament that caused some local authorities not to start implementing the Acts on 1st October. In Scotland, 17 of the 24 local authorities which originally failed to start carrying out the Scottish Act have now decided to do so during the course of the procedures I had to initiate under the 1947 Local Government Act. There are now only six small burghs in Scotland and Clydebank which are failing to carry out their responsibilities.
  As regards Clydebank, there is an extraordinary paradox. Those who have been trying to promote demonstrations in favour of defiance are ignoring the fact that the rent rebate scheme under the Act is far better than that being operated by the town council. Most of the lower-income tenants in council houses will get a much better rebate than under the present scheme, and lower-income tenants in private houses will be eligible for allowances not available to them until the Act is implemented. The idea that the majority of councillors are protecting lower-income tenants is entirely false. While it is clear that three Communist councillors are playing a leading part, there are eight Labour councillors who seem to have been hoodwinked into supporting them.
  Let me give an example. Under our Housing Act a family with two children. a gross income of £25 and a standard rent of £1·75 a week would get a rebate of just over 50p. If the rent were £2·25, the rebate would be just over £1. If the income were £30 a week there would still be entitlement to rebate with a rent of £2·25. All this is far better than under the existing Clydebank rebate scheme, under which there is an arbitrary cut-off point relating to a household income of £21, after which there is no eligibility for rebate at all.
  Taking a lower income within the Clydebank scheme and this is very important—with an income of £20 for a married couple with two children and a stan-
  356
  dard rent of £2, the rent being paid would be £1·35. Under the Housing Act scheme the rent would be 6p a week instead of £1·35p. The Exchequer is now contributing 90 per cent. of the cost of the Housing Act rebate scheme whereas the Clydebank ratepayers are paying for the whole of their present scheme.
  What about the private tenants in Clydebank? There are about 2,000 of them. Under the Labour Government's fair rents legislation they got no help at all with their rent, but under the new Act they will get the same degree of help as council tenants.
  Does the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock support those eight Labour councillors in the line they are taking with the Communists? If he does not support them he was short-sighted in the extravagant invective which was hurled at our Housing Act, which simply misled and confused those who are going to benefit from it.
  Those who have been involved in housing matters for many years, as I have been, know very well that many of the non-political bodies in this field—churches, housing associations and others engaged in social work—had been pressing for the subsidy system to be changed. They had urged that the financial help from the Government and the ratepayers should be related to the circumstances of the individual family. Until last year the subsidies were related to the bricks and mortar and to the accident of the year in which the house happened to be built. They were not related to the needs of the occupants.
  To many social workers this hit-or-miss, haphazard form of subsidy application was long overdue for change, and hon. Members on both sides of the House know that. The Housing Acts of 1972 have now made this change. Besides introducing special subsidies for slum clearance, the new rent rebate and allowance schemes ensure that the Government's financial help goes to those who really need it.
  It is extraordinary that the Opposition should find fault with this. The objection they raise is that the system involves a means test; but there were rent rebate schemes before the Housing Acts came into force last year. Many local authorities operated means tests with the encouragement of the Labour Government,

  357
  who outwardly were advocating the extension of rent rebate schemes.
  Mr. Heffer Mr. Heffer rose——
  Mr. Campbell: There is not enough time left for me to give way.
  Before the introduction of the two Housing Acts of 1972 the procedure for determining eligibility for rate rebates laid down by the Rating Act of the previous Government in 1966 required applicants to state their incomes and family circumstances in much the same way as is required in the new model rent rebate scheme, and in this scheme we have arranged that the amount of personal information required from applicants is kept to a minimum. In particular, it does not require details of the income of members of the tenant's family, apart from his wife, or of dependants living in the house.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart said that more local authorities should do more for environmental improvement. I am glad to tell him that while only five areas were approved for grant in 1970, 32 were approved in 1971, and 243 in 1972.
  The Labour Party has performed some astonishing somersaults in its housing policies. Less than three weeks before the General Election the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), who was Minister for Housing for a short time, expressed the view that what the Labour
  Government needed to do was to stand their whole housing policy on its head. Whether that advice would have been followed we did not get an opportunity to see because the country did not give the Labour Party further time to consider it.
  But it is not only policies that have been turned upside down. In its attitude to such income tests as are required for rent rebate schemes the Labour Party is reversing one of its basic traditional principles; that is, to each according to his need. Is that still Dart of the creed of the Labour Party? If it is, there surely must be some system to measure the degree of need. If that is not the case, we can only assume that that principle has been thrown overboard as regards housing.
  No wonder that the right hon. Member for Grimsby, who opened the debate, wrote in the Observer on 21st January, less than three weeks ago, about the Labour Party that
  "we lack credibility on the central and dominant economic issues of the day."
  When the right hon. Gentleman wrote that a few days ago he probably knew that it would be borne out in the speeches from the benches opposite today, and I ask the House to reject the motion and to accept the amendment.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 303, Noes 276.

  Division No. 49.]

  AYES

  [9.59 p.m.

  Adley, Robert

  Brewis, John

  Critchley, Julian

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Crouch, David

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Crowder, F. P.

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

  Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Astor, John

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus,N&M)

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen.Jack

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Buck, Antony

  Dean, Paul

  Awdry, Daniel

  Burden, F. A.

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Dixon, Piers

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

  Campbell, Rt.Hn.G.(Moray & Nairn)

  Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas

  Bainiel, Rt. Hn. Lord

  Carlisle, Mark

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Drayson, G. B.

  Bell, Ronald

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Dykes, Hugh

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Channon, Paul

  Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Benyon, W.

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Churchill, W. S.

  Emery, Peter

  Biffen, John

  Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Farr, John

  Blaker, Peter

  Cockeram, Eric

  Fell, Anthony

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

  Cooke, Robert

  Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

  Body, Richard

  Coombs, Derek

  Fidler, Michael

  Boscawen, Hn. Robert

  Cooper, A. E.

  Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Cordle, John

  Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

  Bowden, Andrew

  Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Cormack, Patrick

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Bray, Ronald

  Costain, A. P.

  Fortescue, Tim

  Foster, Sir John

  Lane, David

  Rees, Peter (Dover)

  Fox, Marcus

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Fry, Peter

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'field)

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Gardner, Edward

  Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Longden, Sir Gilbert

  Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Loveridge, John

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

  Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

  Luce, R. N.

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Glyn, Dr. Alan

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B

  MacArthur, Ian

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Goodhart, Philip

  McCrindle, R. A.

  Rost, Peter

  Goodhew, Victor

  McLaren, Martin

  Royle, Anthony

  Gorst, John

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Gower, Raymond

  McMaster, Stanley

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

  Macmillan, Rt.Hn. Maurice (Farnham)

  Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

  Gray, Hamish

  McNair-Wilson, Michael

  Scott, Nicholas

  Green, Alan

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Grieve, Percy

  Maddan, Martin

  Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Madel, David

  Shelton, William (Clapham)

  Grylls, Michael

  Maginnis, John E.

  Shersby, Michael

  Gummer, J. Selwyn

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Simeons, Charles

  Gurden, Harold

  Marten, Neil

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

  Mather, Carol

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Maude, Angus

  Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Soref, Harold

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Mawby, Ray

  Speed, Keith

  Hannam, John (Exeter)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Spence, John

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Stainton, Keith

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Mills, Strattor (Belfast, N.)

  Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

  Hastings, Stephen

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire, W)

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M

  Hawkins, Paul

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Stokes, John

  Hay, John

  Moate, Roger

  Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Molyneaux, James

  Sutcliffe, John

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Money, Ernie

  Tapsell, Peter

  Heseltine, Michael

  Monks, Mrs. Connie

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Hicks, Robert

  Monro, Hecto

  Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Hiley, Joseph

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

  Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

  Tebbit, Norman

  Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

  Morrison, Charles

  Temple, John M.

  Holland, Philip

  Mudd, David

  Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

  Holt, Miss Mary

  Murton, Oscar

  Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

  Hordern, Peter

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

  Hornby, Richard

  Neave, Airey

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Trafford, Dr. Anthony

  Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Trew, Peter

  Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

  Normanton, Tom

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Hunt, John

  Nott, John

  Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Onslow, Cranley

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

  Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  James, David

  Osborn, John

  Waddington, David

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

  Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

  Jessel, Toby

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Paisley, Rev. Ian

  Waiters, Dennis

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Parkinson. Cecil

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Peel, Sir John

  Warren, Kenneth

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Percival, Ian

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

  Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

  White, Roger (Gravesend)

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Kilfedder, James

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Kimball, Marcus

  Pounder, Rafton

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Kinsey, J. R.

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Worsley, Marcus

  Kirk, Peter

  Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

  Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

  Kitson Timothy

  Quenneil, Miss J. m.

  Younger, Hn. George

  Raison, Timothy

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Knox, David

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Mr. Walter Clegg and

  Lambton, Lord

  Redmond, Robert

  Mr. Bernard Weatherill.

  Lamont, Norman

  Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Barnes, Michael

  Albu, Austen

  Ashley, Jack

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Ashton, Joe

  Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)

  Allen, Scholefield

  Atkinson, Norman

  Beaney, Alan

  Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  360

  361

  Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Hamilton, William (Fife. W.)

  Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

  Bishop, E. S.

  Hamling, William

  Moyle, Roland

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Boardman, H. (Leigh)

  Hardy, Peter

  Murray, Ronald King

  Booth, Albert

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)

  Hattersley, Roy

  Ogden, Eric

  Broughton, Sir Alfred

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Brown, Robert C. (N'clte-u-Tyne, W.)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  O'Malley, Brian

  Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

  Hilton, W. S.

  Oram, Bert

  Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

  Hooson, Emlyn

  Orbach, Maurice

  Buchan, Norman

  Horam, John

  Orme, Stanley

  Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Oswald, Thomas

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Padley, Walter

  Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Paget, R. T.

  Cant, R. B.

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Carmichael, Neil

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen. N.)

  Panneil, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Pardoe, John

  Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

  Hunter, Adam

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

  Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Clark, David (Colne Valley)

  Janner, Greville

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Cohen, Stanley

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena

  Pendry, Tom

  Coleman, Donald

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Concannon, J. D.

  John, Brynmor

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

  Conlan, Bernard

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Prescott, John

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

  Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

  Probert, Arthur

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

  Cronin, John

  Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Richard, Ivor

  Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

  Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

  Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Kelley, Richard

  Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n&R'dnor)

  Davidson, Arthur

  Kerr, Russell

  Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

  Kinnock, Neil

  Roper, John

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Lambie, David

  Rose, Paul B.

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lamborn, Harry

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

  Lamond, James

  Rowlands, Ted

  Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

  Latham, Arthur

  Sandelson, Neville

  Deakins, Eric

  Lawson, George

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

  de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

  Delargy, Hugh

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)

  Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

  Leonard, Dick

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)

  Dempsey, James

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Dormand, J. D.

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

  Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

  Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Sillars, James

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Lipton, Marcus

  Silverman, Julius

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Skinner, Dennis

  Dunnett, Jack

  Loughlin, Charles

  Small, William

  Eadie, Alex

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Edelman, Maurice

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

  Smith, John (Lanarkshire. N.)

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Spearing, Nigel

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  McBride, Neil

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Ellis, Tom

  McCartney, Hugh

  Stallard, A. W.

  English, Michael

  McElhone, Frank

  Steel, David

  Evans, Fred

  McGuire, Michael

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  Ewing, Harry

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Mackie, John

  Stoddart, David (Swindon)

  Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

  Fisher, Mrs. Doris(B'ham, Ladywood)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

  Strang, Gavin

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Swain, Thomas

  Foley, Maurice

  Marks, Kenneth

  Thomas, Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff, W.)

  Foot, Michael

  Marquand, David

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Ford, Ben

  Marsden, F.

  Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

  Forrester, John

  Marshall, Dr. Edmund

  Tinn, James

  Fraser, John (Norwood)

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Tomney, Frank

  Freeson, Reginald

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Tope, Graham

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Meachar, Michael

  Tuck, Raphael

  Garrett, W. E.

  Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Urwin, T. W.

  Gilbert, Dr. John

  Mendelson, John

  Varley, Eric G.

  Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Golding, John

  Millan, Bruce

  Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

  Gounay, Harry

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Milne, Edward

  Wallace, George

  Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

  Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

  Watkins, David

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Molloy, William

  Weitzman, David

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

  Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  362

  363

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Whitlock, William

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Mr. James A. Dunn and

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Woof, Robert

  Mr. Joseph Harper

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Main question, as amended, put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 302, Noes 276.

  Division No. 50.]

  AYES

  [10.14 p.m.

  Adley, Robert

  Emery, Peter

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Kilfedder, James

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Farr, John

  Kimball, Marcus

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Fell, Anthony

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

  Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Astor, John

  Fidler, Michael

  Kinsey, J. R.

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

  Kirk, Peter

  Awdry, Daniel

  Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

  Kitson, Timothy

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Knox, David

  Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord

  Foster, Sir John

  Lambton, Lord

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Fox, Marcus

  Lamont, Norman

  Bell, Ronald

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

  Lane, David

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Fry, Peter

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Benyon, W.

  Gardner, Edward

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Lloyd,Rt.Hn.Geoffrey(Sut'nC'field)

  Biffen, John

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

  Longden, Sir Gilbert

  Blaker, Peter

  Glyn, Dr. Alan

  Loveridge, John

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

  Goodhart, Philip

  Luce, R. N.

  Body, Richard

  Goodhew, Victor

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Boscawen, Hn. Robert

  Gorst, John

  MacArthur, Ian

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Gower, Raymond

  McCrindle, R. A.

  Bowden, Andrew

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

  McLaren, Martin

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Green, Alan

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Bray, Ronald

  Grieve, Percy

  McMaster, Stanley

  Brewis, John

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Grylls, Michael

  McNair-Wilson, Michael

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Gummer, J. Selwyn

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Gurden, Harold

  Maddan, Martin

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

  Madel, David

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N & M)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Maginnis, John E.

  Buck, Antony

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Burden, F. A.

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Marten, Neil

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Hannam, John (Exeter)

  Mather, Carol

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray & Nairn)

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Maude, Angus

  Carlisle, Mark

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Maudling, Rt. Hn Reginald

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Mawby, Ray

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Hastings, Stephen

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Channon, Paul

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

  Hawkins, Paul

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hay, John

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Churchill, W. S.

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Mlscampbell, Norman

  Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Mitchell, Lt. -Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Heseltine, Michael

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Clegg, Walter

  Hicks, Robert

  Moate, Roger

  Cockeram, Eric

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Molyneaux, James

  Cooke, Robert

  Hiley, Joseph

  Money, Ernie

  Coombs, Derek

  Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

  Monks, Mrs. Connie

  Cooper, A. E.

  Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

  Monro, Hector

  Cordis, John

  Holland, Philip

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick

  Holt, Miss Mary

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

  Cormack, Patrick

  Hordern, Peter

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

  Costain, A. P.

  Hornby, Richard

  Morrison, Charles

  Critchley, Julian

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia

  Murton, Oscar

  Crouch, David

  Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Crowder, F. P.

  Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

  Neave, Airey

  Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

  Hunt, John

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmld, Maj.-Gen. Jack

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Normanton, Tom

  Dean, Paul

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Nott, John

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  James, David

  Onslow, Cranley

  Dixon, Piers

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

  Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

  Jessel, Toby

  Osborn, John

  Drayson, G. B.

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

  Dykes, Hugh

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

  Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Paisley, Rev. Ian

  Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Peel, Sir John

  Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Percival, Ian

  Scott, Nicholas

  Trafford, Dr. Anthony

  Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Trew, Peter

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Shelton, William (Clapham)

  Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

  Pounder, Rafton

  Shersby, Michael

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Simeons, Charles

  Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

  Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Waddington, David

  Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

  Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Soref, Harold

  Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

  Raison, Timothy

  Speed, Keith

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Spence, John

  Walters, Dennis

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Stainton, Keith

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Redmond, Robert

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Warren, Kenneth

  Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

  Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Rees, Peter (Dover)

  Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

  White, Roger (Gravesend)

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Stokes, John

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Sutcliffe, John

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Tapsell, Peter

  Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

  Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

  Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)

  Worsley, Marcus

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

  Younger, Hn. George

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Tebbit, Norman

  Rost, Peter

  Temple, John M.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Royle, Anthony

  Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

  Mr. Tim Fortescue and

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

  Mr. Hamish Gray.

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Dalyell, Tam

  Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

  Albu, Austen

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Hamling, William

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Davidson, Arthur

  Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

  Allen, Scholefield

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

  Hardy, Peter

  Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Hattersley, Roy

  Ashley, Jack

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Ashton, Joe

  Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Atkinson, Norman

  Deakins, Eric

  Hilton, W. S.

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Hooson, Emlyn

  Barnes, Michael

  Delargy, Hugh

  Horam, John

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)

  Dempsey, James

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Beaney, Alan

  Dormand, J. D.

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

  Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Bennett, James(Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

  Bishop, E. S.

  Dunnett, Jack

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Eadie, Alex

  Hunter, Adam

  Boardman, H. (Leigh)

  Edelman, Maurice

  Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

  Booth, Albert

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Janner, Greville

  Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Broughton, Sir Alfred

  Ellis, Tom

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena

  Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne, W.)

  English, Michael

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

  Evans, Fred

  John, Brynmor

  Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

  Ewing, Harry

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Buchan, Norman

  Faulds, Andrew

  Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

  Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

  Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

  Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

  Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Cant, R. B.

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Carmichael, Neil

  Foley, Maurice

  Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

  Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

  Foot, Michael

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda. W.)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

  Ford, Ben

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Forrester, John

  Kelley, Richard

  Clark, David (Colne Valley)

  Fraser, John (Norwood)

  Kerr, Russell

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

  Freeson, Reginald

  Kinnock, Neil

  Cohen, Stanley

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Lambie, David

  Coleman, Donald

  Garrett, W. E.

  Lamborn, Harry

  Concannon, J. D.

  Gilbert, Dr. John

  Lamond, James

  Conlan, Bernard

  Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

  Latham, Arthur

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Golding, John

  Lawson, George

  Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Cronin, John

  Grant, John D. (Islington. E.)

  Leonard, Dick

  Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Lipton, Marcus

  366

  367

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Orbach, Maurice

  Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

  Loughtin, Charles

  Orme, Stanley

  Spearing, Nigel

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

  Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Stallard, A. W.

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Padley, Walter

  Steel, David

  McBride, Neil

  Paget, R. T.

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  McCartney, Hugh

  Palmer, Arthur

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

  McElhone, Frank

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Stoddart, David (Swindon)

  McGuire, Michael

  Pardoe, John

  Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Strang, Gavin

  Mackie, John

  Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Swain, Thomas

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Pendry, Tom

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

  Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Prescott, John

  Tinn, James

  Marks, Kenneth

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Tomney, Frank

  Marquand, David

  Probert, Arthur

  Tope, Graham

  Marsden, F.

  Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

  Tuck, Raphael

  Marshall, Dr. Edmund

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Urwin, T. W.

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Varley, Eric G.

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Richard, Ivor

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Meacher, Michael

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

  Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Mendelson, John

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Wallace, George

  Mikardo, Ian

  Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Brc'n&R'dnor)

  Watkins, David

  Millan, Bruce

  Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Weitzman, David

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Roper, John

  Wellbeloved, James

  Milne, Edward

  Rose, Paul B.

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Molloy, William

  Rowlands, Ted

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  Sandelson, Neville

  Whitlock, William

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Tyne)

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

  Short, Rt.Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Moyle, Roland

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton.N.E.)

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Murray, Ronald King

  Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

  Woof, Robert

  Oakes, Gordon

  Sillars, James

  Ogden, Eric

  Silverman, Julius

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Skinner, Dennis

  Mr. James A. Dunn and

  O'Malley, Brian

  Small, William

  Mr. Joseph Harper.

  Oram, Bert

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House approves the measures Her Majesty's Government have taken to meet housing needs and welcomes the increasing number of housing starts for home ownership;
  368
  the provision, by means of improvement grants, of a record number of modernised homes; and the encouragement of local authority housing in areas of stress; and further welcomes Her Majesty's Government's determination to increase the amount of land available for house building.

  NORTHERN IRELAND (MUSEUMS)
  Mr. Speaker: We now come to the three Northern Ireland orders. I gather that it is the wish of the House that we should begin by taking them separately.
  10.25 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Peter Mills): I beg to move,
  That the Museums (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.
  Northern Ireland is able to boast of two excellent national museums, the Ulster Folk Museum and the Ulster Museum. Both museums have been partly financed from local government sources, but with the coming of local government reorganisation it would be inappropriate for the new district councils to contribute to these national museums for which they will have no direct responsibility. Therefore, the main purpose of the order is to bring to an end at 30th September 1973 the existing direct local government contributions.
  With the reorganisation, therefore, the Ministry will have to increase its current grants to offset the loss of the local authority contributions. The order removes the present statutory limit of £45,000 on the annual grant to the Ulster Folk Museum and the limit of £70,000 on the grant from the Ulster Land Fund towards the cost of minor capital expenditure. There are no statutory limits on any of the grants to the Ulster Museum.
  The boards of trustees of both museums contain local authority representatives, and, although the contributions will cease, it is undesirable to break this useful link with local authorities. The order makes some changes, however, in the composition of the boards. The size of the board of the Folk Museum is being reduced from 20 to 15, of whom six will be nominated by local authority sources, and a trustee nominated by the New University of Ulster is now added to each board to join the members appointed by the Queen's University.
  The order further provides for the transfer from the Minister of Finance to the Minister of Education of responsibilities
  370
  with effect from 1st April 1973; this reflects the transfer of financial responsibility. The power to give grants to Armagh Observatory will also transfer. The order also empowers Armagh County Council to enter into an agreement with the Trustees of the Ulster Museum, for the latter to take over responsibility for the Armagh County Museum, because the cost of maintaining this museum would bear too heavily on the proposed new Armagh District Council.
  At present there is a statutory impediment on the imposition of charges at the Ulster Museum full-time, and article 2 of the order provides for its removal and clearly enables the trustees to make charges for admission. Admission charges are, and always have been, the rule at the Ulster Folk Museum.
  The order covers several other minor matters such as the change of name of the Ulster Folk Museum to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum to indicate more clearly the scope of its interests.
  This may seem a small order but it is of considerable importance to the organisations concerned and, I believe, to the organisation of cultural and educational amenities in the Province.
  10.30 p.m.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: As the Under-Secretary has explained, the order makes amendments to the legislation governing the Ulster Museum and the Ulster Folk Museum which arise out of local government reorganisation, to which we have addressed our minds in the past. I note that the order, which was one of the measures going through Stormont at the time of prorogation, received a Second Reading on 23rd March 1972. The Second Reading lasted precisely 12 minutes. This consisted of a brief presentation of the Bill, as it then was, by the Minister of Finance. There were no other speakers, and the Minister was not questioned or interrupted once during his speech.
  Mr. James Kilfedder: A sad state of affairs.
  Mr. Rees: It is not for me to criticise Stormont. It would be the last thing I should do. It means, therefore, that there are a number of points that we ought to raise on the order.

  371
  The Minister has explained that the main changes between the Stormont Bill and the Westminster order are the addition of the provisions about Armagh County Museum, which is to be linked with the Ulster Museum, and the transfer of functions from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Education, as is the case in this country.
  Both these changes seem sensible, though there is one point I should put to the hon. Gentleman. I understand that there is some fear among museum staff that the Ministry of Education may give a lower priority to museums than did the Ministry of Finance, since in the new Ministry it will be one of many items of expenditure, whereas in the old Ministry it was regarded as something of a prestige item. Will the hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance on that point?
  On the whole the order is welcomed. The restructuring of the boards of trustees of the museums is certainly necessary, and it has been done in a sensible fashion. It seems proper that some element of local government representation should be maintained, and the introduction of representation for the New University of Ulster is a welcome step.
  The order also changes the financing of the museums. In future, local authorities will not contribute to the costs, but all the finance will be provided from central funds.
  Will the Minister tell the House how much it is envisaged will be spent in the first financial year after the provisions of the order come into effect? Will he also give us the figures for each museum broken down into revenue grant, purchase grant and capital costs? This is an important matter which should have been put when the Bill was first introduced into Stormont. The amount of money available for purchase is an extremely important factor in a museum's outgoings.
  The main criticism is about article 4(a) which empowers the trustees of the Ulster Museum to make charges for admission. This provision has been opposed by the Ulster Museum trustees and other parties, but their views have not been heeded.
  If this charge is dropped in this part of the United Kingdom, may we be
  372
  assured that it will be dropped in Ulster—in other words, that there can be a tit-for-tat arrangement here? It is important that we should know about that matter.
  The point has been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House that viewing art and cultural exhibits is an educational experience and that education is traditionally a free provision of the British Government. Far be it from me to pretend to know a great deal about the Ulster Museum, but people who have written and talked to me about it make the point that many of the exhibits—works such as "The Dawn of Christianity", a painting by Turner owned by the Ulster Museum—were given as gifts to the public as a whole and that they, therefore, have a right to see them without personal expense.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that some of these paintings are hanging not in the museum but in Stormont Castle, and that only those who are privileged to go into Stormont Castle can see them?
  Mr. Rees: That is an interesting point. Collecting money from those who visit Stormont for other purposes than to look at the pictures would be an interesting sideline.
  I understand also that the Ulster Museum is situated in the Botanical Gardens Park in Belfast and relies to a great extent on casual passers-by calling in. Most of its visitors are children and old-age pensioners, categories of persons who under the Westminster proposals pay reduced admittance charges. Those charges are too low to raise significant revenue but high enough to deter the casual visitor. Do I understand that old-age pensioners and children will pay a reduced charge in Northern Ireland?
  In Northern Ireland unemployment is higher and income levels are lower than in most other parts of the United Kingdom, and the Province is poorly endowed culturally in this case, although in another sense its cultural heritage is equal to, if not greater than, that in other parts of the United Kingdom. What charge is it anticipated will be made for admission to the Ulster Museum? How much is it estimated will be raised in revenue in this way? What estimates have been

  373
  made of the extra costs of collecting such charges, and how much will the new revenue be as a percentage of total expenditure in a year?
  I understand that an appeal has been made to raise moneys for the Armada Treasure. It is important to know whether any of the moneys from the Government are to be added to the appeal, whether either of the museums will play, or is playing, a part not only in raising revenue but perhaps in housing some of the treasure at a later stage. The Minister must be forthcoming on this point. It is one of great interest.
  We approve of the structural changes in the order but, just as my hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Faulds) has opposed from the Opposition Front Bench the imposition of museum charges in the other parts of the United Kingdom, so we oppose museum charges in Ulster. The argument is almost precisely the same, but in many respects the monetary argument is very much weaker in the context of the problems of Ulster.
  10.38 p.m.
  Mr. James Kilfedder: I, too, agree that admission charges to museums are disagreeable. There is an excuse and an explanation why there should be a charge for entrance to the Folk Museum at Cultra because it occupies, as I hope shortly to explain, extensive grounds and it is not possible to supervise all the various buildings and the exhibits there. The charge contributes to measures to stop vandalism. But in the case of the Ulster Museum, I believe that there should be no admission charges. If there were power to amend the order, I should gladly lend my weight in putting forward such an amendment. However, the decision has been taken in this part of the United Kingdom to impose admission charges to museums and, since we in Northern Ireland always cry out for identical treatment, I suppose that reluctantly we have to follow suit in this instance.
  I want first to talk about the Ulster Folk Museum, which is in my constituency and which is one of the three museums mentioned in the order. It is hardly possible to speak of it without referring to the inspiring work done by a certain Welshman. It is right to pay tribute to a Welshman whenever the opportunity arises, and there are two dis-
  374
  tinguished Welshmen on the Opposition Front Bench this evening. It is always a pleasure to see the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas), and I am glad that he is present to hear me pay tribute to a fellow countryman of his.
  The Welshman in question has adopted Ulster as his second home and honoured us by doing so. There is abundant evidence in Northern Ireland of the Scots, and the Ulsterman is proud of his own achievements. But it was left to a Welshman, like a voice crying in the wilderness, or, more aptly, a voice crying in an Irish bog, to urge the establishment in Ulster of a folk museum and archive. That cry was heard as long ago as the 1930s, and it came from Professor Estyn Evans, lecturer in geography at the Queen's University, Belfast. We owe him a debt of gratitude which can only be paid by dedication to his enlightened goal of preserving and securing the evidence of our culture. He struggled hard and long for the establishment of a folklore museum in Northern Ireland.
  Though my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) may not agree with me, in my view the real contribution made by Professor Evans to the study of Ulster's heritage was a systematic examination of every aspect of that culture, wherever it was to be found, including the writings of Ulster poets, the use of farm machinery, the traditional design of Ulster furniture, and the methods used in the building of Ulster cottages and farm buildings. At the Queen's University, he was professor of geography for many years—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman cannot go into the details of the good professor's career. He must keep fairly strictly to the terms of the order.
  Mr. Kilfedder: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Obviously, I must be bound by your ruling. But from previous debates it is clear that tributes are paid to people who have initiated projects, and I am discussing—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that that is quite in order. However, it is not in order to develop those tributes into a lengthy description.
  Mr. George Thomas: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will bear in mind that this is a tribute to a Welshman.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I should not like this to be another injustice to Wales.
  Mr. Kilfedder: May I complete my brief tribute to Professor Evans? Throughout his years at Queen's he opened the eyes of several generations of young Ulster men and women to the richness of their common heritage, and few persons have contributed more to the geographical and ecological knowledge of local people. I am sure that Professor Evans would agree that interest in the traditional aspects of country life is a common bond for all creeds and classes in Northern Ireland. We may have different racial origins, and the cultural complexities may reveal themselves in religious and political differences, but what we all have in common are our country roots.
  Because the Folk Museum happens to be in my constituency, I do not want to over-emphasise its importance or its place in Northern Ireland. It has international repute, and those who know it do not need words of mine in its support. Nevertheless, it has always been treated as the poor sister of the Ulster Museum mentioned in the draft order. I hope that the transfer of responsibility for the four museums to a central Government body will result in fairer treatment. I think perhaps the same results could have been achieved simply by extending the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance to cover the other three museums.
  I am, frankly, appalled at the decision to transfer the responsibility to the Ministry of Education. We know what large sums of money are annually demanded for schools and higher education nowadays. The competition with the clamant demands of education could weaken the financial position of the museums in Northern Ireland. Association with the Ministry of Finance brings them closer to the Northern Ireland Treasury. Already too little is spent on museums in Northern Ireland. The danger is that they might become worse oil in time.
  Once again we are presented with the difficulty that we cannot propose an
  376
  amendment to a draft order. Otherwise I would propose an amendment stopping the transfer to the Ministry of Education. This order is almost the same as the Museums Bill which received a Second Reading at Stormont on the day before Stormont was suspended, on 23rd March last year. The main change is the transfer of functions to the Ministry of Education. I regret that as a retrograde step. I have not yet decided whether or not to divide the House on this draft order. I believe this decision is wrong, and I hope the Minister will say that it will be looked at again.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: He will not have a chance.
  Mr. Kilfedder: I do not know what the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) is saying, as his voice is not so loud as usual.
  There is only a slight connection between the ordinary responsibilities of the Ministry of Education for primary and secondary schools and the facilities provided by museums.
  Mr. A. W. Stallard: The hon. Member mentioned transfer to "a central Government". Did he mean Westminster, Dublin, or some other?
  Mr. Kilfedder: I am sure that you would rule me out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I were to reply to the hon. Member. [An HON. MEMBER: "Have a go."] I deliberately said the Ministry of Finance because we are awaiting the formulation and publication of the White Paper.
  What this order says is that museums are to be transferred to the Northern Ireland Ministry of Education. What I say is that they should be under the Ministry of Finance, which would, perhaps, make proper financial provision for them. It is difficult enough for the museums to get money, but once they leave the Northern Ireland Treasury they will have to fight for every penny they can obtain. At the moment they form part of the Ministry of Finance Vote in Northern Ireland and are shortly to become part of the Ministry of Education Vote. So instead of having one fight for finance on their hands the museums will have two. They will have to fight the education lobby and persuade it that they

  377
  deserve sufficient money and adequate support. Then the Ministry will have to fight with the Treasury on their behalf.
  I wonder how strongly it will wage that fight with the cautious men of the Treasury, who have to consider other demands, including educational demands. It will be an annual contest which I fear the museums will lose. Moreover educationists may well regard themselves as experts and tend to interfere with the expert judgement of the museum officials. The work of the Ministry of Finance is so far removed from the work of museums that this problem does not arise. That Ministry relied on the advice tendered by the museum officials. This was right and proper.
  Throughout Northern Ireland there are ancient and not so ancient agricultural implements—turf creels, ploughs and other relics of our rural past, of which I am proud, just waiting to be saved and brought together for display. But the money is not there. What is needed immediately is a substantial reserve fund available to the trustees which they can call upon whenever a purchase has to be made. Often valuable items have been missed because the money was not available.
  I notice from the accounts for the year ending 31st March 1971 that payments out by the Folk Museum at Cultra included loan charges—together with capital repayment of £526—of £2,571. Surely this is an intolerable burden for the museum to bear. For the same period the transport Museum paid £3,498 by way of loan charges, including £73 capital repayment. These two museums are now being amalgamated. Their financial difficulties are great, and this presents the Government with the opportunity to recognise the importance and potential of the new Folk and Transport Museum by writing off these loans which are a hardship to the trustees, who are doing an admirable job.
  A comparison may be made with the finances of the Ulster Museum. According to the Government, in 1972–73 the Ministry of Finance is providing £280,000 as the revenue grant and £40,000 for the purchase grant, while the Belfast Corporation contribution is £42,000. In addition, the Ministry has given a special purchase grant of £88,000 towards the cost of purchasing the Girona Treasure.
  378
  Further, £1·2 million was given to the Museum by way of the Ulster Loan Fund for the extension of the building and the re-modelling of the original area of the Museum. Those are tremendous sums. When that largesse is compared with the pittance which has been provided for the Ulster Folk Museum and the Transport Museum, it is obvious that the position must be rectified. I hope that my hon. Friend in his reply will agree that this is what will happen.
  I shall not give the figures on which the Folk Museum relies, but I merely wish to point out that its 1970–71 annual report states that the trustees during that year considered it necessary to ask the Ministry of Finance to receive a deputation which emphasised the acute nature of the museum's financial problems. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will take a serious look at the situation.
  It is only right to mention the extent, scope and potential of the Folk Museum. In 1961 a 136-acre site was purchased at Cultra, County Down, and the museum was formally opened in 1964. In 1967 an amendment to the Museum Act was passed under which the former Belfast Transport Museum and the Folk Museum would be merged. An additional 40 acres of adjoining property were purchased for the re-siting of the Transport Museum. It is a splendid site. Experts all over the world look upon the Folk Museum and the Transport Museum site as a splendid complex. I would advise more hon. Members to see the museum facilities which are provided in Northern Ireland when they visit the Province.
  Since 1964 the Folklore Museum has attracted about 700,000 visitors. In its first year of operation the British Travel Association judged it to be the best new tourist amenity in the United Kingdom and awarded it the "Come to Britain" trophy. Its professional staff, in addition to initiating a basic research programme at the museum, has lectured extensively in the Province and elsewhere, mainly to promote public interest in the work of the museum and the heritage it seeks to provide.
  The Folk Museum attracts parties of children from both Protestant and Roman Catholic schools, and sometimes they go together to see its exhibits reflecting life in the past; and this makes a real contribution to the life of Northern Ireland.

  379
  The museum not only faces difficulties as a result of inflation, rising costs and devaluation of the £, but the Government appear to lack the will to help the museum as much as they should.
  I should have liked to make reference to the wonderful exhibits in the Transport Museum which will eventually be transferred to Cultra, but time does not allow. However, I desire to refer to one particular potential exhibit—the schooner "Result", the last of the three-masted schooners. It was bought, almost as an act of faith, by the trustees of the Folk Museum. The "Result" was built in Carrickfergus in 1893, and soon became acknowledged as one of the finest trading schooners operating in British waters. It has been recorded by the Ulster Folk Museum Year Book that
  "the beauty of her lines influenced hull design as far afield as Holland and into the age of diesel propulsion."
  The schooner was purchased for £6,000 by the trustees, brought to Belfast and now they are waiting for an estimate to have it made shipshape. However, they need financial assistance from the Government, and I hope it will be forthcoming. One day I wish to see this fine old trading schooner anchored off the shore beside the Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra.
  I wish also to refer to the Castle Museum in Enniskillen. This, I regret to say, is not included in this order, I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) is hoping to speak about this museum. It should have been included in the order. No fewer than six regiments of the British Army were raised and based in Enniskillen, which has a history comparable with that of Londonderry in loyalty to the Crown. Fermanagh County Council has renovated the museum at considerable expense. The best future for it would be under the control of one of the Government bodies. The advisory committee includes two local historians of standing, Father Peadar Livingstone and Mrs. Mary Rogers, who warmly support that it should be dealt with in this way.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think the hon. Gentleman is overdoing the background, as it were. I hesitate to interrupt because it is extremely interest-
  380
  ing. Nevertheless, it has to be in order, and the hon. Member is overstepping the bounds of order in going into details about these people and things like the schooner, which, of course, interests me very much.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The purpose of the draft order is to take over the museums of Northern Ireland and to appoint trustees to run them under the Ministry of Education. It is surely in order to say that one important museum is left out, and to give reasons why it should not be.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: We have to remember that we are only in order if we talk about matters contained in the order. The Chair always allows some tolerance to hon. Members in enlarging on the detail of matters directly concerned, but that should not be overdone. Unwittingly and interestingly, the hon. Member was doing that, but he should not overdo it.
  Captain L. P. S. Orr: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. While one agrees completely with your interpretation of order, nonetheless it has been the custom of the Chair, in dealing with Northern Ireland orders, to allow latitude to take account of the fact that these would normally be Bills before the House of Commons at Stormont with Second Reading, Committee stage and Third Reading.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I agree. I have been trying to do that. The hon. Member is inclined to overstep the mark, and I am sure that he will bring his remarks to a close as several other hon. Members wish to speak.
  Mr. Kilfedder: I am surprised, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you should accuse an Irishman of overstepping the mark! However, I shall bring my remarks to a close, much as I should like to educate our hon. Friends about the amenities of Northern Ireland other than the fighting.
  I want to emphasise that those two local historians support what I am saying and that they approve of the museum being brought under the control of a Government body.
  If this museum is not brought under the control of central Government it will inevitably suffer should the local authority

  381
  one day have a Republican majority. The Irish Nationalists, who have no love for British relics or anything that connects Ulster with the United Kingdom—
  Mr. John Biggs-Davidson: Is not my hon. Friend confusing Nationalists with Republicans? Does he not remember what the Nationalists did in two world wars?
  Mr. Kilfedder: Conscious as I am of what you said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will not go off on a tangent.
  Some people fear that if the Republicans took control of that district council they would ruin the museum by starving it of funds or removing the exhibits which associate Enniskillen with the British Army.
  I ask the Government to amend the order, or to bring in a new order, to keep this museum under the Ministry of Finance and to give it the financial assistance it needs.
  11.6 p.m.
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: I warmly endorse that part of the speech of the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) in which he expressed opposition to the imposition of charges on museum visitors which is proposed in the draft order. That view was also firmly expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees).
  In explaining the order to the House, the Under-Secretary of State glossed over the imposition of charges, although he knew that this was a matter of grave controversy. He did not explain why charges were to be imposed on visitors to the Ulster Museum, but merely mentioned them in passing. After all that has been said against this proposal in respect of other museums in the United Kingdom, surely special justification is required for imposing these charges in Ulster, which is suffering so much distress. The Government are proposing that visitors to the Ulster Museum who seek aesthetic enjoyment and education should have to pay to enjoy its magnificent exhibits. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will justify this innovation when he replies to the debate.
  The justification for imposing entrance charges to museums in other parts of the
  382
  United Kingdom has been two-fold. The explanation given by the Prime Minister in the House and elsewhere is that people enjoy art more if they have to pay for it. Is that the argument used in respect of the Ulster Museum? The other explanation is that the charges are imposed in fulfilment of a pledge given by the Paymaster-General to the Chancellor of the Exchequer shortly after the election to raise £1 million revenue. It is said that that pledge must be fulfilled. The House is not interested in a pledge given by one Minister to another. The pledge given by the Paymaster-General to the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a personal affair. It has nothing to do with the House, any more than has a pledge given by the Paymaster-General to his aunt.
  The Government policy being projected into Northern Ireland is that children, retirement pensioners and those who love art shall for the first time in history pay for the pleasure of enjoying the national treasures which they own. It is ridiculous that the Government should ask for this imposition to be extended to the Ulster Museum. Why in the world is it being done? How much money are the Government going to raise as a result? What percentage of the money taken at the door will go in expenses? In some other museums in the United Kingdom, 30 or 40 per cent. goes in expenses. Is it really worth while bringing about this very important change in principle, breaking the old and fine tradition we have had in the United Kingdom for centuries that works of art in the possession of the people should be seen by the people freely and enjoyed by them? It is very regrettable that this tradition is being broken at all but even more so in Ulster.
  Of course, it may be argued that there should be uniformity and that what happens in Britain should happen in Ulster. I agree that there are two features in common between Britain and Ulster in this affair. First, in Ulster, as in Britain, all the trustees of all the museums and galleries hate the imposition of charges and have done their best to oppose and stop them. They have all said that charges are wrong and contrary to the principles of the institutions for which they are responsible. The trustees of the Ulster museums and galleries have said the same

  383
  thing as those in the rest of the United Kingdom.
  Secondly, the whole art world in the United Kingdom—and I am sure that this applies equally to Ulster as to any other part—opposes the charges, and the whole educational establishment says that charging is contrary to public policy by creating a barrier against those who want to visit their museums and galleries.
  I know that the Under-Secretary of State does not decide these matters. They are decided at a level much above his influence. But he should convey to those responsible, the Secretary of State, the Paymaster-General and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that, especially in the conditions now obtaining in Ulster, these charges are wrong in principle, are harmful and will be resented.
  Let the hon. Gentleman at least make the case that as long as the troubles last in Ulster the charges should not be imposed, if, indeed, they ever have to be imposed—and it is far better to remove them altogether. Let us at least be told that they will not be imposed in Northern Ireland as long as it remains in the condition of hardship, pain and suffering of today.
  11.13 p.m.
  Mr. John Biggs-Davison: Whatever our views may have been on museum charges in Great Britain, we cannot but have heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) with sympathy. The trouble is, of course, that we cannot amend this order. The House is in this intolerable difficulty to which reference has already been made. The sooner this kind of legislation is returned to a parliamentary assembly in Northern Ireland the better.
  Northern Ireland is under-represented in this House. The constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone is not represented at all because the hon. Member returned for that constituency has decided not to perform any of the duties for which he was returned. Therefore, I think it is open to others of us to refer to the Castle Museum of Enniskillen, which has not been included in this order and ought to be.
  Some while back, when I was touring the border, I discussed this small but valuable museum with Fermanagh county
  384
  councillors. It is a cultural institution of which the people there have a right to be proud. I must confess that ever since I was a small boy and taken to the Royal United Service Institution museum in what is now the gloriously-restored Banqueting Hall in Whitehall I have been addicted to military museums. The Enniskillen Castle Museum is bound up with a magnificent military tradition of no fewer than six Irish regiments raised in Enniskillen. The old barracks are Georgian, and they surround the castle keep, which dates back to Stuart times.
  The Castle Museum houses exhibits relating to the Royal Irish Rangers, which is an amalgamation of the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers and the Royal Ulster Rifles, and to the 5th Royal Inniskillen Dragoon Guards. These units bear the castle of Enniskillen in their regimental insignia.
  The Fermanagh County Council has taken considerable trouble over the museum. It has spent a good deal of money on renovating it, and has leased most of it to the Army for the regimental museum of the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers. Across the yard from the entrance to the keep the council has leased rooms to the Royal Irish Rangers for its regimental headquarters. The officer in charge is also curator of the museum, which consists of regimental exhibits on the first two floors. On the floors above them are county and folk exhibits. But this military element in the museum suggests to me that it has a national as well as a merely local significance.
  It has been put to me that the museum can play a part in the tourist industry in Fermanagh, and I hope it will not be considered facetious if I say that I hope that when the troubles are over it may be possible to have son et lumière both in Derry and in Enniskillen.
  The castle at Enniskillen is an ancient monument described as not in State care, and is so scheduled by the Ministry of Finance.
  The Armagh County Museum is to be brought, by article 7 of the order, under the Ulster Museum, and, therefore, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, replacing the Ministry of Finance. A like arrangement should be made for the Castle Museum at Enniskillen. The regimental museum could

  385
  remain as a welcome tenant from which the Ministry could derive revenue.
  Reference has been made to local opinion and sentiment on the matter. I am informed that the Enniskillen Advisory Committee, including local historians of the calibre of Father Peadar Livingstone and Mrs. Mary Rogers, are unanimous in desiring that the museum should not be handed over to a district council without the resources to do with this asset what could be done.
  11.18 p.m.
  Mr. Andrew Faulds: I intervene briefly to make what I believe to be important and valid points on the order.
  The order puts into effect a number of changes which for various reasons are desirable, but it embodies one provision which the trustees of the Ulster Museum do not desire and to which they have objected. Their objections to this provision have been communicated to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, both directly and through the Advisory Commission for Northern Ireland.
  The objectionable provision is article 4(a) which substitutes a new text for paragraph (j) of Section 2(2) of the Museum Act (Northern Ireland) 1961. The existing legal position under that Act is that, by virtue of a reference back to the Museums and Gymnasiums Act 1891, the trustees of the Ulster Museum are obliged to keep it open to the public free of charge for a minimum of three days each week. In practice, by the trustees' own decision, no charge is at present made on any day of the week.
  Thus, as in the cases of the institutions in England and Scotland figuring in the Museums and Galleries Admission Charges Act 1972, which we have had to suffer in this House, there existed a legal impediment to the trustees' being pressurised into doing what the Government wished; namely, to charge on every day of the week. Hence the provision in the order, which is enabling rather than mandatory in the same way as the 1972 Act.
  The present position of the trustees of the Ulster Museum in this matter is that they disapprove of charging. They spelt out their view clearly in the report of the trustees for the year 1st April 1970 to 31st March 1971, in which they say:
  386
  "The Trustees considered the implications of the proposed legislation on several occasions during the year and have carefully examined the advantages and disadvantages of the measure. Conscious of the facts that admission to the Belfast and Ulster Museums had been free since 1891 and that admission charges might deter visitors to the museum at the very time when the re-opening of the building presented opportunities for an increased number of visiors, they have conveyed personally to the Minister their opposition to the institution of admission charges for the Ulster Museum …"
  They do not want these things imposed in Ulster.
  Incidentally, the trustees object to being made the unwilling instrument of a policy of which they disapprove. They take exception to being cast in a most invidious rôle in the present distressing circumstances in Northern Ireland. They regard the erecting of any financial barrier to the access of citizens to a civilised amenity, which this museum is, at such a time as a gratuitously infelicitous action, to put it mildly.
  There is one point which I hope the Under-Secretary of State will clarify. In Section 3(b) of the lapsed Stormont Bill it was explicitly stated that the provision in Schedule 1, paragraph 4(1) of the Museum Act (Northern Ireland) 1961, whereby the chairman of the trustees was a ministerial appointment, was to cease to have effect.
  That explicit statement has not reappeared in the body of the order, though the repeal of the provision would appear to have survived in the schedule. The original provision in the 1961 Act seems to have been inserted because the board, on the transfer of the museum from the city of Belfast to the nation, was at that time a new creation.
  In all other circumstances—I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State is scratching his head, as he had better find out about this—the chairmen of the boards of trustees of the national museums and galleries are elected by the members of the boards at any given time and not appointed by a Minister. Raising this point in connection with the order provides an opportunity for this important general principle to be reasserted. I trust that the hon. Gentleman, in a moment of illumination, will do so.
  11.23 p.m.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: I find myself in strong agreement with hon.

  387
  Members who have expressed their opposition to admission charges to the Ulster Museum. At this time especially, when it should be the effort of the Government to get our young people off the streets and interested in things that could help them to become better citizens and to cooperate with the rest of the population, it is essential that every effort be made to encourage them to visit the museums without putting on an iniquitous charge for so doing.
  I regret that we have not had the opportunity either to propose amendments or to vote on this very important matter. The House will agree that it was right that we did not take the three orders together, which was the Government's original suggestion. We would then probably have spent our time having a discussion only on this order and we would not have had an opportunity to comment upon the other orders that are to come before the House.
  I support my hon. Friend the Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) in his exposure of the folly of the Government in transferring museums from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Education. I am glad that the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) is also interested in the matter of the Girona treasure because it was found off the coast of my constituency.
  The Ministry of Finance made a liberal grant of £88,000 towards the cost of purchasing this treasure, which can be seen in the museum of Northern Ireland. If at that time the museum had been under the control of the Ministry of Education no such money would have been forthcoming. We know the row that goes on every year when education in Northern Ireland gets £X thousands for the educational needs and amenities of the people of Northern Ireland.
  Mr. Ernle Money: Would my hon. Friend confirm that a large amount of the money for the Spanish treasure was raised by public subscription and that money is still coming in? Many of the people who subscribed towards the purchase of the treasure will have to pay to see it if this proposal goes through.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: I agree with my hon. Friend. The Ministry of Finance pro-
  388
  vided £88,000, and £50,000 was raised by public subscription. Those who contributed will have to pay again to see the treasure when they visit the museum, and that strengthens the argument against imposing a charge.
  I take the point that many things in the museum were gifted to the people of Ulster. They were given so that people could view them at any time, yet now the Government are taking it into their head to instruct the trustees of the Museum to charge the public for seeing things that were gifted to them. The Ministry of Education will never be in a position to make liberal grants to the museum. We all know that when the proposal comes to the Ministry there will be cheeseparing, just as there is with the school programme. The museum will be the cinderella of the Ministry of Education and will not receive liberal grants for the important work that it does.
  Why was a change made in the proposals in the original draft dealing with the appointment of the trustees? For how long will these trustees hold office? Can the Minister explain why the representation from the Belfast Corporation, which will now be from the Belfast Council, has been cut by 50 per cent., from four to two, in the case of the trustees of the folklore museum?
  I pay tribute to Belfast Corporation for having pioneered the museum in Stranmillis Road and handing it over for the good of the community. The corporation also pioneered the Transport Museum which has been handed over to the community.
  Mr. Kilfedder: My hon. Friend has confirmed what has been said by every speaker so far; namely, that this is an important debate. Does he agree that it is extraordinary that not one Republican Member of Parliament from Northern Ireland is present?
  Rev. Ian Paisley: I am sure the House will note that when we are debating matters that have to do with the welfare of the individual and the good of all the people of Northern Ireland, there is not present a representative from among those in Northern Ireland who have argued vociferously against Government control in Northern Ireland and have carried on their agitation against the forces of the

  389
  Crown. Some of us have been branded as not being interested in the ordinary individuals in Northern Ireland, but every night that this—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must not pursue this. We must return to the order.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Those in Northern Ireland who are interested in the everyday life of the community and the betterment of that life have had their representatives present here, and they have taken part in the debates.
  The Opposition spokesman drew the attention of the House to the fact that when the Bill was presented at Stormont there was no debate. The reason for that was that the following day the announcement was made here that this House would be taking over the powers for Northern Ireland. Consequently, those hon. Members at Stormont, including myself, were not present. However, that has illustrated the very important fact that many Bills passed through Stormont with a nod of the head. There is a far better debate in this House, albeit it is at Westminster, than would have taken place at Stormont. Those supporters of the Stormont Parliament should take that into their considerations.
  While many people on the verge of what could be a momentous day tomorrow have various things to say about this Parliament, the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland recognise without equivocation the sovereignty of this House, and recognise that this House is not a régime but a democratically elected Parliament to govern the people of Northern Ireland.
  I am glad of the opportunity we have had tonight to discuss something which affects everyone in Northern Ireland.
  11.32 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Mills: This has been a very interesting debate. It has ranged far and wide. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have been very tolerant. As a very new Under-Secretary concerned with these problems, I have learned a tremendous amount tonight. The debate has been very worth while. So many questions have been asked. I shall try to cover
  390
  most of them. If I fail, I promise to see that all are answered in letters.
  The hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) was glad to welcome the order. I liked it when he said that it seemed sensible. That is true.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: We feel very strongly about the charges. It was the structural changes that we said were sensible.
  Mr. Mills: I accept that. I assure the House that there will be no lower priority given to museums.
  The hon. Member talked about how much would be spent in the first financial year. I shall write to him about it, but I can say that they are considerable sums.
  For the Ulster Museum in 1973–74 the revenue grant is £336,000; the purchase grant is £45,000; the capital is approximately £100,000. For the Ulster Folk Museum the revenue grant is £142,000, and the capital is £150,000. Those are very considerable sums. That answers the attacks that the Ministry of Education will not be looking after these museums.
  Mr. Faulds: When the hon. Gentleman is speaking of these comfortably sized sums, would he not agree that it makes even more ludicrous the proposition of charging when about £10,000 or £12,000 might be the result in a year of the imposition of charges?
  Mr. Mills: No. It shows that the Government are prepared to help to finance with these very large sums but, indeed, that others should have some responsibility in that. I shall come to those problems, but I doubt whether for one moment I shall be able to convince hon. Members on that. However, I shall try.
  Mr. Kilfedder: My hon. Friend has mentioned money for the folklore museum. Would he not accept that the loan which is being paid off is a terrible millstone around its neck and impedes the work that it could do? Further, does he not recognise that the mass of material which is at present available in Northern Ireland for collection for the museum will disappear unless the money is made available to purchase it and to bring it into the folklore museum?
  Mr. Mills: I certainly have taken into account what my hon. Friend has said on this matter. Certainly we shall look into it. We must not go back; we must go forward in these matters. These heavy financial problems will be examined.
  I was asked whether, if we dropped these charges in Great Britain, we would drop them in Northern Ireland. The simple answer is "Yes". I believe that the charges are a matter for the trustees to decide. I can say that no decisions have yet been taken. Obviously, the Government must take into consideration any decision about grants.
  Mr. Strauss: The Minister says that the amount of the charges will be the responsibility of the trustees; but other museums and galleries in the United Kingdom have been dictated to by the Paymaster-General. Will that apply to the Ulster Museum, or will its trustees have a latitude that is denied the trustees of other museums?
  Mr. Mills: My knowledge of these matters tells me that it is for the trustees to decide. Under this order they are able to make charges, and it is for them to decide.
  It may be of some help to hon. Members on both sides of the House if I say that in this whole question the Government will consider the special situation in Northern Ireland. I do not want to be pressed any more on that, but that is a fair thing to say. Of course, we accept that there are very difficult situations in Northern Ireland.
  I come now to the appeal made for the Armada Treasure. My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) asked what we had done to help. The Ministry has given £88,000—two-thirds of the cost. That does not show that the Government are not interested in these things and prepared to help.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: Will not the Minister admit that it is much easier to get money from the Ministry of Finance to the tune of £88,000 than it is to get such a vast sum from the Ministry of Education when it is pressed for finance?
  Mr. Mills: If I answered that question I should be straying far from what I am allowed to say. From my experience the
  392
  Treasury has always been the most difficult Department from which to get money. I do not have these fears; I believe that the Ministry of Education takes this matter very seriously, and I think that the money will be forthcoming. I shall try to explain that a little later. I understand that no further money is required for this collection. The money has been raised, and I understand that with the grant the position is very satisfactory.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) talked about the Ulster Folk Museum. He paid a glowing tribute to Professor Evans. I agree with him. I hope that I shall not be out of order in saying that I think that my hon. Friend is right. The Minister of State responsible for these matters has visited this museum and has described it to me in glowing terms. It is something that should be helped and promoted, and I am sure that it will be. I have been too busy to visit either museum up to now, but I hope to do so soon, probably during Easter, and I hope to take my children with me. I understand that that would be of tremendous educational advantage to them. Talking about the "poor sister"—I think that was the phrase that was used about the Ulster Museum—will not be true, even if it were true in the past. I think that is the best way to put it.
  Mr. Kilfedder: Is that an assurance from my hon. Friend that the Ulster Folk Museum will have its financial assistance from the Government doubled or trebled?
  Mr. Mills: No. I shall not be led up that path. The Ministry of Education will be fair about these things. I hope that all the museums will go forward, and the Ministry of Education will take careful note of what my hon. Friend has said.
  My hon. Friend also talked about the problem of the Ministry of Education taking over the museums. I disagree with him on that matter. Already school courses are proposed at the Ulster Folk Museum. Both museums are keen to develop educational services, encouraged by the Ministry of Education. I am sure that is a very good thing.
  I understand that the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss)—I must be careful about this as I live in his

  393
  constituency and there may be an election coming up—feels very strongly about these matters. If he wants me to repeat the Government's views on why they have sought to introduce charges at museums I will do so.
  The museum has a national status. It must take the rough with the smooth. The Ministry of Finance was spending a substantial amount on the museums both in capital and current grants. There was no evidence that attendances would be permanently affected by charges. Most countries charge for admittance. Charging allows control over admission and also encourages the public to look for value for money.
  These are some of the views that the Government have expressed why there should be admission charges. Obviously in the context of Northern Ireland and the problems there, the Ministry will take careful note of the strong views which have been expressed tonight.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) spoke about the Castle Museum at Enniskillen, as did other hon. Members. I know only too well how much people like that small museum. It is important to them, and they are very proud of it. I am certain that the Minister of State responsible for these matters will take note of the views and fears which have been expressed on this matter.
  The hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Faulds) referred to charges at the Ulster Museum. He did not mention that the Ulster Folk Museum has been charging admission for some time with no apparent problems. Again, his very strong views will be passed on.
  The hon. Gentleman nearly caught me out regarding the chairman of the Board of Trustees. Fortunately, I was able to obtain some information on this point. If I do not answer it correctly, I will make certain that the hon. Gentleman receives a correct answer later. The first chairman will be appointed by the Minister for one year only. Then, when the whole thing is under way, the chairman will be elected in the normal way by the trustees. It was felt that as this was a new institution it might be advisable for the Minister to make the appointment to begin with. I understand that the Duke of Abercorn will probably be the first chairman.
  394
  The hon. Member for Antrim, North emphasised many of the points that I will try to answer tonight. He asked how long the trustees would hold office. They will be appointed for three years. The number of trustees from the city of Belfast has been reduced in proportion to the overall reduction.
  Mr. Stratton Mills: Can we take it that if money is required in the future for specific subjects such as the Girona collection it will not be taken off the general education bill but will be specifically negotiated as an additional amount for that purpose through the education department?
  Mr. Peter Mills: I am not certain about that point but we could examine what has happened in the past. No doubt if such difficulties arose, particularly in a case such as the Girona collection, the Minister of State would look into them carefully.
  I had thought that this was a simple order. I did not think it would take so long, but, except for the strong reservations about charges, I think it has been welcomed and I commend it to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Museums (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.

  NORTHERN IRELAND (BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGES REGISTRATION)
  11.47 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Peter Mills): I beg to move,
  That the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.
  The order is concerned mainly with the establishment of a new registration system based on the 26 new district councils. These will appoint staff, provide accommodation and administer the service. In this they will be acting as agents for the Ministry of Finance, which will bear all the expenditure. At present

  395
  there are 120 registrars' offices throughout Northern Ireland the majority of which are open for a few hours only each week. Some years ago county health committees were encouraged to centralise registration in designated districts with salaried staff, but only 20 offices are involved. The intention is to man register offices full-time. Registration facilities will also be available at maternity hospitals, where well over 90 per cent. of all births take place. Even should the birth not be registered there, it can be registered in the district in which the mother of the child lives, whereas previously it could be registered only in the district in which the birth occurred. Under the order the facility of alternative districts of registration will also apply to deaths.
  The order also introduces a new procedure for the changing of forenames and surnames in birth registers. This concerns only the recording of the change and has no effect on the law on the subject. At present no change of surname may be recorded and the only change possible is where a forename is given or altered within two years from the date of birth of the child. The idea behind the provision is to avoid embarrassment to a person by enabling him to produce a birth certificate in the name by which he is generally known. The scheme has been operated in Scotland for the last five years, and it has not been abused. The Registrar-General will be able to authorise the registration of a birth or death where a qualified informant is not available. At the time of registration of a birth information other than that required for registration may be obtained, but this information, together with all information on still-births, is to be safeguarded and disclosed only in limited circumstances.
  Certain officers who under the new system will lose office as superintendent registrar and who would be eligible for pension or other allowance in respect of registration duties would be compensated.
  Some parts of the order will come into operation 14 days after the order is made. This will enable the Ministry to set up the basic machinery of the new service so that everything will be ready on 1st October 1973. I ask the House to support the motion.
  11.50 p.m.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: This was a measure going through Stormont at the time of Prorogation. It did not have a Second Reading.
  The Under-Secretary has explained that the order is concerned with a new registration service as a result of the reorganisation of local government and that the decision was made in accordance with the Macrory Report to finance it from central Government funds. This seems practicable and sensible. However, there are one or two points that I wish to put to the hon. Gentleman.
  The Under-Secretary referred to article 7, which provides for the payment of compensation for the loss of jobs. The hon. Gentleman said that certain superintendent registrars would be affected. How many officers are likely to benefit, if that is the right word? What total sum of money is liable to be involved? While we do not wish to publicise an individual case, can the hon. Gentleman give a general outline of the sort of compensation which would be paid to a man of 40. who could normally expect to serve for another 20 or 25 years? Whereas in many cases when redundancy payments are made, especially in industry, it is possible to obtain similar employment, what other employment opportunities will there be for those affected? It is a specialised job, and it is important to know what the Government have in mind.
  With whom have negotiations taken place to decide the sum? Redundancy payments have developed a great deal on this side of the water in the past 10 years. Did the Government decide on this in vacuo, or was it decided in negotiations with the equivalent of the local government officers' association or a civil service association?
  Article 8 provides that all the expenditure will be from central funds. What is the figure anticipated for the first financial year in which this order takes effect and how does it compare per capita of the population in Northern Ireland with other parts of the United Kingdom? In this instance, I shall be happy to receive the information when the matter has been researched.
  In the January issue of Ulster Commentary News Supplement there is a note to the effect that the death-rate in Ulster

  397
  is the lowest in the British Isles. According to the Registrar-General's return for the June quarter of 1972 the figure is equivalent to an annual rate of 10·8 per thousand of the population. How is the information published after being collected by the registrars? I notice that this is the Registrar-General's return. Is this the method of publication of the information which will be collected under the provisions of the order?
  Trying to delve into some of the figures relating to birth rate, death rate and marriage rate, I notice fertility rate. This is not unimportant in Northern Ireland in view of some of the problems there. For the birth rate the number of live births registered per thousand of the population is given, but the important figure is the fertility rate. Is this figure arrived at in the same way as the figure of birth rate? The fertility rate is that of total legitimate live births per thousand to married women aged under 45. From my researches I notice that the illegitimacy is growing in Northern Ireland, as it is in other parts of the United Kingdom. The definition for the fertility rate being based on the number of legitimate live births per thousand to married women under 45, this is a technical point which should be cleared up for those who are interested. As it does not refer to illegitimate births, there seems an under-estimate of the true situation.
  In general, this draft order is welcomed by this side of the House.
  11.57 p.m.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: This draft order is very important because it deals with the whole scope of living from birth to death with marriage between. There are many points which could be made in discussion of it. I wish to ask some questions.
  The marriage code in Northern Ireland is very complex. It has often been said that the Scottish law on marriage is very intricate, but in Northern Ireland there are many ways in which people can be married either by licence or by certificate. Is the Minister to reduce from 120 to 26 the number of offices where a person can be married in what is known as a registered building by licence or certificate? How will the Minister be able to guarantee a proper kind of service when that number is reduced from 120 to 26?
  398
  The draft order says in article 10(4):
  For a period of three years from 1st October 1973 a person may be married in a registered building in which he could have been married if this Order had not been made; and accordingly for the purpose of this paragraph the residence of that person shall be deemed to be the registration district in which that building is situated.
  The Minister may not be aware that in an application for a licence or certificate one of the parties must live in the registered district in which the registered building is situated. If the person does not have an address in the area, he cannot be married there. I wonder whether the provision relating to three years is long enough to get over the teething troubles that are bound to arise when the number of offices dealing with the registration of marriages is cut from 120 to 26.
  We are dealing here with the effects of the Macrory Report. This order is put forward in an effort to reorganise the registration offices dealing with births, deaths and marriages into the groupings of the district councils. I can see a lot of trouble resulting from the order. It is not possible to have 120 offices one day and only 26 the next without trouble being caused. This is an important point with which the Minister should deal in winding-up the debate. Being engaged in marrying people, I know the troubles that can arise. People will have to travel considerable distances to give notice of marriage because there will no longer be a register office in their district.
  What will happen when the Central Registration Office is set up and all certificates are issued by the Registrar-General? How many of the people engaged in the work of the 120 offices will be assimilated into the work of that central office?
  Part II of the order leaves much to be desired. When dealing with the certificate it says:
  "such other particulars as may be prescribed."
  Can the Minister tell us what particulars are to be prescribed? Has the religion of the child to be clearly stated on the certificate? Is he aware that in Northern Ireland, in view of the working of the Ne Temere decree of the Roman Catholic Church, the future of many a child is decided in a court of law, when the certificate is involved? I am not bringing this in because of any sectarian prejudice. I know the heartbreak that can

  399
  occur. I would like the Minister to expound on this. Many people will look at the order and think there is nothing in it. But there is a lot in it because it affects the lives of the people in the community.
  Paragraph (5) in Part II of Schedule I says:
  "Where the Registrar General is satisfied, after such inquiry as he thinks necessary".
  What are the guidelines for the Registrar-General in making inquiries "as he thinks necessary"? This order is far too loose. We find that the Registrar-General is able to make out a certificate without having a qualified person to give him details for the certificate. I do not think that the Registrar-General should be given such wide powers by this Parliament.
  Another interesting requirement is that after a year no particulars shall be entered in the register. To whom are these figures to be made available? This is a very important point, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will clarify it. We should be told who will have access to these figures, because they will relate to personal details.
  When a birth certificate is sought for an illegitimate child, will it be issued in such a way that the child does not suffer embarrassment when he goes to school or takes a job? The fault is not that of the child, and he should not be made to suffer all his life from embarrassment caused by a birth certificate. Up to the present time it has been the rule to leave a blank space for the father's name. Perhaps the Minister will say what he proposes to do to remedy the situation.
  There are other matters arising on the order with which I shall not detain the House, but I hope that on the important matters which I have raised the Minister will let me have the information in his reply or in written form later.
  12.6 a.m.
  Mr. Peter Mills: I shall try to reply to many of the points which have been raised, but if I do not succeed in including them in my reply I promise to give full answers in due course.
  The hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) said the order was practical and sensible, and I agree with him. He asked a number of questions.
  400
  He asked how many officers would become redundant and eligible for compensation. It is an important point. I understand that the number involved is about 30. I am unable to say what sums of money will be entailed, but the compensation in each case will depend directly on the fees earned. Most of the personnel are part-time, so the sum will not be large.
  The hon. Gentleman also asked how the information was published. I understand the registrars transmit returns to the Northern Ireland Registrar-General. He collates the information, he will continue to do so and it will be published in the normal way. I was a little worried about his remarks about the fertility rate, and I would prefer to answer that point in a letter. I want to be sure I get the answer right.
  The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) talked about the marriage code and raised many important points. I must tell him that the authorities in England, Wales and Scotland are considering radical changes in the law relating to the solemnisation of marriage. It is intended to see how these matters apply in practice before any changes are made in the complicated arrangements in Northern Ireland. I give him the firm assurance that we are carefully looking at the matter and watching what others are doing. The Minister concerned will undertake to consider any points which are raised on the subject when the procedure is revised. It is hoped that such marriage legislation would be considered within the three years envisaged in the order. We are looking into the situation, but it is complicated.
  I am a little confused about the number of officers. I understand the 120 officers are registrars of births, deaths and Roman Catholic marriages. They have nothing to do with the issue of marriage licences. I am not clear about the situation, and I will look into it and see that the hon. Gentleman gets the correct answer.
  The hon. Member asked what further information would be required. This is likely to be the dates of birth of father and mother, date of marriage and the number of children previously born. It is intended that these particulars should be used for the preparation of statistics by the Registrar-General and, in certain

  401
  circumstances, the Ministry of Health and Social Security.
  I can promise that the fears the hon. Member raised will be taken into account when it is decided to disclose information to the Ministry of Health and Social Security. Obviously, it is a delicate matter, and all the points he raised are delicate. That is important that the number of people to whom this information is given is kept to a minimum, and I can promise him that it will be.
  Again I commend the order to the House—
  Rev. Ian Paisley: Can the hon. Member answer my point about the birth certificate issued where the child is illegitimate?
  Mr. Mills: I was going to write to the hon. Member but, mysteriously, a note has appeared before me and I can tell him that it will be the ordinary certificate, except where the mother does not want the name of the father shown, when it cannot be divulged. This is such a delicate point and is so important that I should write to the hon. Member so that we can make it quite clear. We do not want any embarrassment in that situation.
  I thought this was a simple order, but the more one looks into it the more one sees that the more points hon. Members rightly raise the more complicated it becomes. It is still practical and sensible, in the words of the hon. Member, and I commend it to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.

  NORTHERN IRELAND (FINANCE)
  12.12 a.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Peter Mills): I beg to move,
  That the Financial Provisions (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.
  The order is a routine measure to deal with sundry matters of a financial nature.
  402
  Its main provisions, in articles 3 to 6, are concerned with extending cumulative limits which the Northern Ireland Parliament has placed on certain financial transactions. Article 3 would increase the limits on issues from the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund for certain categories of Government capital expenditure.
  An increase in these limits does not imply final approval for expenditure up to these limits. That is important, and so I emphasise it. Departments will still be required to submit annual estimates which detail expenditure on these items for approval by Parliament.
  Article 4 seeks to increase the amount which may be outstanding from the Northern Ireland Government Loan Fund; article 5 would increase the borrowing powers of the Electricity Board for Northern Ireland, and article 6 would permit the issue of a further £500,000 to the Ulster Land Fund, which is mainly used to finance grants for the acquisition of historic buildings and for capital expenditure on museums.
  The order also contains provision in article 7, for powers which would enable the Ministry of Commerce to alter by regulations the fees for registration of companies in Northern Ireland. In article 8 it provides for technical amendments in the law governing the issue of Northern Ireland Treasury Bills; these amendments should ensure that the Bills may, for reasons of speed and administrative convenience, be prepared and issued, on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, by say, a bank or an agent.
  This is a simple, routine measure.
  12.15 a.m.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: The measure may appear to be simple, but enormous sums of money are involved. The order is the sixth Northern Ireland financial measure to be considered since direct rule. There have been three appropriation orders, a Loans (Increase of Limit) Order and a Financial Provisions Bill. Before the House rises for the Easter recess we shall be considering a seventh measure, the Appropriation (No. 1) Order 1973. Where does the Financial Provisions (Northern Ireland) Order fit in to the sequence? Why is it not another appropriation order, and why do we get advance notice of it?

  403
  We shall shortly have the equivalent of the Budget for Northern Ireland, and there will be plenty of scope on that occasion for a general discussion, but I want to put one or two questions to the Minister.
  Article 3 and Schedules 1 and 2 contain provisions for increases in statutory limits on issues for certain categories of expenditure. Will the Minister let me have, by letter, a breakdown of the three figures given in Schedule 1? The limit of £25 million for the development services is increased to £32 million. The limit of £23 million on the Exchequer and Financial Provisions Act is increased to £30 million and the limit on the Industries Development Act is increased from £250 million to £325 million. What are these extra amounts for, and why, so near the end of the financial year, are the Government asking for them? An extra £75 million is being provided under the Industries Development Act, and we should be told what it is for.
  Article 4 increases the limit on outstanding sums from the Government Loans Fund. I presume that that is the Northern Ireland equivalent of the National Loans Fund. Again, I should like to know whether the method of disbursement, the interest rates and the procedures followed are the same as for the rest of the United Kingdom. An extra £50 million is asked for. For what purpose do the Government want this extra money.
  Article 5 is concerned with the Northern Ireland Electricity Board, which is to take over the Northern Ireland electricity service. Bearing in mind that in July last year we passed an order setting up the new organisation, how is it going? Can we have a progress report?
  Article 6 is said to be necessary to accommodate anticipated capital expenditure on the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. What development is the money to be spent on?
  My general question is important, although I shall put it briefly. When he was in Northern Ireland towards the end of last year the Prime Minister gave a figure which was said to be the extent to which Northern Ireland was subsidised by the rest of the United Kingdom. We have had various figures bandied about.
  404
  including one of £200 million. Let us take the Government's own figure of £200 million as the amount of money that we provide for Northern Ireland. I want to illustrate from the figures I have culled over the last year.
  In the session 1971–72 the figure—I shall not break it down because the Under-Secretary of State will recognise it—was £130 million from this part of the United Kingdom to Northern Ireland for social services and so on, plus £65 million from the National Loans Fund. I think that that total of £195 million is the notional figure of £200 million talked about.
  Mr. James Molyneaux: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree—he seems to imply it—that this figure is largely mythical? The fact that Northern Ireland has for 50 years been part of the United Kingdom means that no one can disentangle this sum from the United Kingdom's finances. It is largely guesswork.
  Mr. Rees: That may well be, but the figure given by the Government for 1971–72 was £130 million plus £65 million, which is almost £200 million. For 1972–73, the figure is £200 million plus £100 million. So, in the course of a year, it went up from £200 million to £300 million, and on top of that £300 million there is £120 million in the form of assistance via the Northern Ireland Finance Corporation—£250 million, plus £35 million as extra capital for Harland and Wolff, additional capital recommended by Professor Cairncross at £18½ million, and extra money for employment at £30 million. The latest figure is £200 plus £100 million plus another £120 million in the way I have noted, and then there is another £15 million which the Government announced in December, again for employment, parks and so on to provide 1,000 jobs.
  There may well be an under-estimate. Professor Norman Gibson in December published a paper in which he argued—and gave evidence for it—that there was an under-estimate in this respect. So that we can keep tabs on it, I ask whether the money we are dealing with tonight is additional to the £300 million plus £120 million to be added to the figure everyone is talking about. I do not put this to argue whether the figure is large

  405
  or small, but it is important that we should know what we are doing.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that Northern Ireland, being part and parcel of the United Kingdom, and being in the difficulty in which it finds itself, is entitled to receive help. About £1,000 million is to be given to the miners of this country. Would not the hon. Gentleman take it very bad from the Northern Ireland Members if we said it was a terrible thing that the miners were to get that sum? Surely, each part of the United Kingdom is entitled to enjoy the benefits of being part of the whole? As a representative from Northern Ireland, I appreciate the point, and I have pointed out to the people of Northern Ireland that its artery is the link with this country, and that in my opinion our country would be an economic wilderness if we were not part and parcel of the United Kingdom.
  Mr. Rees: I was simply trying to clarify the situation. The hon. Gentleman has properly made his point. I have many miners in my constituency, and I come from a long line of coal miners. We do not say that we want to declare UDI and that we do not want the money that the Government are giving. Some people in Northern Ireland, unlike the hon. Gentleman, argue that the figure is meaningless. Therefore, on the political level perhaps having the figure known might reinforce the argument that many others put forward.
  I am simply seeking to find out what these large sums are all about. We are dealing with large sums for development. The bombing in Northern Ireland—the sort of thing that will be going on today—with large numbers of people going on strike, will only reinforce the view of many people in this country who are saying that we are wasting our time by talking about industrial development and so on. I can only hope that the majority of those who thought to be involved in the strike today will follow the advice of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which asked trade unionists not to be involved.
  If we can use constructively the large sums of money we are talking about, we shall all have played a part in working
  406
  towards a peaceful solution in Northern Ireland.
  12.28 p.m.
  Mr. Rafton Pounder: I share the desire of the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) to obtain an idea of the total indebtedness—if that is the right word—of Northern Ireland to the United Kingdom Exchequer as a whole. It is an exercise I have been engaged in for some years.
  No two sets of figures bear the remotest resemblance to their predecessors. I do not say this unkindly, but the hon. Gentleman trotted out yet another set of figures. The tragedy is that we do not know the answer, but we must find out. I do not say this because I have any time for the notion of UDI, which is political and economic madness.
  My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary did not minimise the importance of the order, but gave the impression that he thought it was fairly straightforward. I always think that, until I start to look at some of the orders. The point was amply borne out on the last order to come before us by my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley). The hour is late, and it is inevitable that in a heavy and crowded parliamentary timetable we should have to take important matters at a later hour than we would wish. Bearing in mind the state of the Under-Secretary of State's throat and my throat, which is in a comparable condition, I assure my hon. Friend that I shall not prolong the debate a moment longer than necessary.
  The hon. Member for Leeds, South asked about the £7 million in respect of grants for development services and the £7 million on capital expenditure on public services, and perhaps the same remarks will do for both of us. Before coming to the main part of the order—namely, the £75 million for industrial development expenditure—I have two questions about the £10 million capital arrangements for the Electricity Board of Northern Ireland in Article 5. First, how far has the provision of extra generating capacity at Coolkeeragh and Ballylumford progressed? Secondly, what progress is being made with the underground scheme at South Down and the joint North /South scheme in County Fermanagh?

  407
  I turn to Article 6 which deals with the Ulster Land Fund. My hon. Friend in introducing the order referred to the acquisition of land for the purpose of preserving or improving natural beauty or amenities in any area. Of course, another purpose for the Land Fund is to pay death duties on estates received by the Exchequer. I assume that the additional money is not related to the death aspect of the Ulster Land Fund. That being so, presumably the money is earmarked for specific projects. Will my hon. Friend give some idea of what those projects may be?
  I am at a total loss when I turn to Article 7. I am ashamed professionally to admit that. As an accountant I should have a greater knowledge of the Companies Acts of Northern Ireland. What is the present position concerning company fees, their nature and their levels? Why are such extensive powers of variation now to be introduced? It is possible that it is intended to harmonise the levels that exist and have existed for some time in the rest of the United Kingdom.
  It is one of the nightmares of accountancy students studying company law in Northern Ireland to have to operate in some matters under the Westminster Companies Acts and for other things, such as bankruptcy, under the Northern Ireland Companies Acts. When I was a student there was about two decades between the passage of the two relevant Acts. Is it the intention of the Government in the near future to introduce new scales of fees of company registrations and/or to remove certain types of existing fees which may perhaps be somewhat anomalous?
  I shall make a minor digression to mention a matter of importance in the context of economic and industrial development in Northern Ireland. For many years the North has had to compete in attracting industries from outside with the incentives offered by the Irish Republic. Many people in the North favoured the idea of tax holidays as part of industrial incentives. In the South they adopted that practice. What is the position now that we are both members of the EEC? Tax holidays are not permitted as a form of incentive under the rules and regulations of the Community.
  408
  Will the bulk or, at any rate, a substantial proportion of the £75 million envisaged in the increase of loan facilities, and so on, go to the Northern Ireland Finance Corporation? This project has not been in existence for very long, and I shall be interested to know how much is intended for capital grants to industry and how much will be channelled through the corporation.
  Perhaps this is an opportune moment for the Minister to give us some report of the development of the Northern Ireland Finance Corporation since its creation. It will be recalled that it was established with a fund of about £50 million to tackle the cumulative effect of civil unrest on the Northern Ireland economy, and particularly to provide finance for those firms which had short-term liquidity problems but whose long-term prospects were fairly reasonable.
  There have been changes, and further changes are envisaged. The provision of £75 million may lead to changes in some of the ground rules under which the corporation operates. Initially there was no assistance for the retail trade. Then, rightly in my view, the scope of the corporation was broadened to include retailers. How much financial support has been given? In what areas has the assistance been given, and what have been the criteria by which help has been offered or provided? There have been some rather unattractive instances of money being withheld in emergency cases, and one feels that this must run counter to the spirit of the corporation.
  I illustrate the point with one specific case. A gentleman owned two jewellery shops. One was totally destroyed and one was partially destroyed in an explosion on the same day—1st April 1972. To date, he has not received any compensation because, he has been told, one shop was not totally destroyed, and it could be repaired, and it is up to him to get on with it and put in the claim.
  This is ridiculous. If he has one shop that is totally destroyed and another that is badly damaged, he does not have the liquid assets to enable him to engage in any form of repair programme or project, and consequently he is in serious trouble. He will get no compensation for loss of profits, and yet we were told in June 1972 by my hon. Friend the Minister of State that sums up to 70 per

  409
  cent. could be paid by way of interim settlement. Something appears to have gone wrong with the machinery, and some thoroughly unreasonable delays have occurred.
  Do its terms of reference permit the corporation to provide bridging finance where it is impossible or almost impossible to obtain money on the open market? Can someone who has had to employ new and sophisticated security measures to protect his shop or has paid increased premiums on his premises receive assistance from the corporation?
  Another problem that has arisen in the granting of compensation to those who have suffered damage is that of delays in the granting of the chief constable's certificate. No claim can be entertained for bomb damage unless it is accompanied by what is called the chief constable's certificate to the effect that the damage was caused by an explosion. This should be a mere formality but, unfortunately, times without number that has not been the case, and I understand that there are about 8,000 certificates outstanding. It seems rather a large number.
  I hope that a great deal of the £75 million will go to the NIFC, which has been doing an extremely good job hitherto. It is certainly worth all the assistance which I hope that the order, when passed, will provide for it. I support the order.
  12.40 a.m.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: This is a very important draft order. As has been rightly said by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees), we are handling very large sums of money and dealing with matters that deserve the closest attention of hon. Members.
  I notice that under the increases in sums to be issued out of the Consolidated Fund there are three particular matters for which the money is required. The first relates to the Development Services Act (Northern Ireland) 1948. That Act is
  "to enable financial assistance to be given and other measures to be taken to provide for certain services, for bringing derelict land into use, and for the development of derelict areas generally; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid."
  In examining the order one will find that there is an increase of money for development services. In what areas of
  410
  Northern Ireland will this money be spent? What derelict land is to be brought into use? What amenities is it proposed should be put into this land?
  This is relevant to the situation in my constituency, where in many of the villages there is a considerable amount of derelict land, with tumbledown dwellings thereon. Will the Minister state why this large amount of money and the increase is necessary for the development services and other expenses under the Act?
  From my knowledge of Northern Ireland, it seems that because of the troubles there this derelict land is not being used at all. In my constituency I cannot see where an effort has been made by the Government to deal with those parts of the countryside which are crying out to he dealt with. Where is this money being spent? Where, as a Member of Parliament, can I go and see improvements to the countryside? I should be very happy if the Minister would tell me, for I fail to see why this vast increase is necessary.
  The second matter to which I refer relates to the Exchequer and Financial Provisions (Northern Ireland) Act which provides for the public service of the Government of Northern Ireland for the erection and improvement, alteration, enlargement furnishing or equipment of buildings used or to be used for the purpose of the Government of Northern Ireland.
  We are asked to agree to an increase in the sum for that purpose. I call the Minister's attention to the deplorable state of some of the police stations in Northern Ireland. Is the Minister aware, for instance, that in Larne in my constituency, the police station is totally inadequate for the housing of the police? I had an interview with the Chief Superintendent of the North Antrim area, at which a deputation of 16 people could get into the room only by standing, as there was no room for seating. Such areas are areas where there has been trouble. Much business has to be done by the officers in charge of the stations and there are not even facilities for carrying out an interview with a deputation in these areas.
  The Minister may be aware that the police station has been bombed; that a repair job has been done which is totally

  411
  inadequate, and that consequently the police are living in deplorable circumstances. I invite the Minister—when he gets the time; he has been telling us that he is trying to get time to see the museums—to come to Larne and see the police station. I know him to be a fair-minded man, and I am sure that he will agree that the police are living in deplorable conditions in Larne at the present time.
  I should mention that the police station in Lisburn, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) is also in a deplorable condition. It is a wonder that police officers are prepared to work in such conditions. These men are taking their lives in their hands, and yet they have to work in these police stations without any facilities or comforts. I know that police stations cannot be built in a day, but I should like to know whether the money that is being voted tonight is going towards this purpose. If it is I shall be happy to support this very important cause, which is the cause of the future of the law officers of the Crown in Northern Ireland.
  I also ask the Minister about the facilities in some of the places where the people of Northern Ireland have to transact their business. On many occasions I have to appear at tribunals on behalf of my constituents. Some of the anterooms in which members of the public have to meet and sit for an hour or 1½ hours, waiting to be called, are also in a deplorable condition. I have been in waiting rooms which contain only two chairs but in which perhaps 15 people have to wait to appear before the tribunal. I ask the Minister to keep these flatters in mind. Perhaps he can cause a start to be made in improving facilities in these public buildings.
  The same situation is to be found in many courtrooms. Some of the places in which courts have been held in Northern Ireland are in a deplorable condition. Buildings have been utilised in which there is no heating, no proper place to interview people, and no proper rooms for witnesses or even jurors. I ask the Minister to keep that point in mind and to give us some information about the programme of the Government in this direction.
  Mr. James Kilfedder: My hon. Friend is referring to the courts. I think that I am in order in asking him about the work of the magistrates and the pay that they receive. Does not he agree that it should be increased? Perhaps he will agree that the death of Mr. Staunton was a terrible tragedy. He died as a result of a terrorist attack.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: I certainly agree with my hon. Friend when he draws attention to the fact that some of the magistrates in Northern Ireland have been doing their duty in such a way that there have been attacks on their lives.
  Recently Mr. Staunton—a Roman Catholic magistrate—was gunned down by IRA terrorists when taking his children to school. After being very severely injured he lay for a considerable time, unable to move. He has now passed on. Such magistrates deserve the best possible conditions in which to do their work. I am talking about magistrates who do their duty. There are others of whom I would say that I would not care whether they had any facilities at all. Yesterday, in the city of Belfast, a man was brought to one court charged with having 15 sticks of gelignite, four detonators, a quantity of blue sump, a fuse, 150 feet of cordex and a bottle of sulphuric acid—and the magistrate let him out on bail! The type of magistrate who lets people like that out on bail is not one for whom I want to plead for a better chair or toilet facilities. That magistrate was a Mr. Charles Stewart, a former Nationalist Member of the Stormont Parliament.
  In case you feel like calling me to order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will come to the Industrial Development Act; which is included in the draft order. That Act is concerned with industrial development. The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland accept that they depend upon their mother country, as it were, for many of the privileges that they rightly enjoy as members of the United Kingdom. I am happy to express the gratitude of the people of Northern Ireland for those services initiated by the Government to develop industry in Northern Ireland. We rejoice that the Harland and Woolff shipyard has obtained this great order, which will keep many of our men employed for some

  413
  years. I gladly pay tribute to the Government on their efforts to bring employment to Northern Ireland.
  I want to make this House a sounding board to the people of Northern Ireland. Those who this day would call on the people of Northern Ireland to down tools and to cease their employment are certainly not helping the cause of Northern Ireland either in this House or in this part of the United Kingdom. The strike is about the detention of two men. Even if those two men were absolutely innocent, exhorting people in Ulster's time of crisis to leave their places of employment, which we are voting sums of money to improve and to further, is no way to lodge a protest against the Government. I utterly deplore the action of those leaders in Northern Ireland who are calling on people to jeopardise the whole economy of Ulster and to bring its industrial development to a standstill. I deplore and condemn it unequivocally.
  We are being asked to vote money to keep industry going and to develop it, and to give the people of Northern Ireland the right to work—the basic right of every individual in society. Yet, while this is being done in this House, we find one section of the community calling for strikes and another section of the community engaged in blowing up these industrial establishments. This is very sad. It needs to be, and ought to be, condemned vigorously by every representative who has been elected in Northern Ireland.
  I want to voice that opinion in this House. To those workers I say, "We are giving you more money so that your jobs may be safeguarded. We are providing better places in which to work, and better security. If you have a legitimate protest, make it in a legitimate manner".
  The only people who will be hurt in the strike will be the people of Northern Ireland. It is they who will go without light, heat, and other facilities; it is their children who will go without schooling. The Government here will sit in light and heat. They will not feel the effects of the strike at all.
  I ask the people of Northern Ireland to be sensible at this time. Let us not allow anyone to lead us up a blind alley; let us not allow anyone to hinder the
  414
  industrial development of Northern Ireland at this time.
  No doubt the Minister will confirm that the new board is not yet in operation. Many of us are interested in the supply of electricity to our constituencies, but we are worried about the high prices charged to connect people's homes to the electricity supply. Within the last 10 days, while I was in my constituency, I had drawn to my attention the case of three houses in one road which wanted electricity but where approximately £330 was demanded from each householder before it could be connected. Electricity should be an amenity provided in the public service, and that is an extravagant charge to make for connection.
  There is a considerable delay between a person's application for electricity and its installation. A farmer in Garryduff, outside Ballymoney, has had to wait a year for it to be connected to his house, although it is already installed only 100 yards away. The electricity board told me that there is great difficulty with way-leaves being negotiated. I trust that with the spending of this money in Northern Ireland electrification will be speeded up. I am glad to support the spending of money to take light into the dark places, especially to many of those people who deserve to get the light. [Laughter.] The Minister should certainly do his best to "Send the light", and I recommend that evangelical duty to him.
  I should be interested to know the precise amount of money which flows from Northern Ireland to Great Britain by way of taxation. It is not a one-way traffic. What benefits does Britain receive from Northern Ireland? That might sound strange theology to the hon. Member for Leeds, South, but I should like to have an exposition on it.
  I do not know what is wrong in the House, but everybody seems to be affected with throat trouble, and I seem now to be smitten, like the Minister. I shall therefore conclude my remarks.
  1.0 a.m.
  Mr. James Kilfedder: I wish to detain the House for but a few minutes. I am conscious of the late hour but I wish to draw attention to certain matters in my constituency. I have raised them before, but with little success. I

  415
  now address my remarks to the new member of the Ulster team at Stormont Castle, in the hope they will reeive better attention than they did in the past.
  The first question relates to new industries. North Down is regarded as an affluent area. My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) would call it that. He speaks with great emotion about the facilities which are lacking in his constituency. But although North Down may be regarded as rich with many large farms, as having some large factories and many rich individuals living there, nonetheless we desperately need new industry. Will the Minister tell us what money will be diverted to North Down? It is a relatively peaceful area, and because of that the Government seems to feel that there is no need to put money there, since they have to spend money where people are complaining, where there is terrorism, and so on. But there is just as much need for money to be spent in North Down to create new industries, because the population is increasing. At the last election, my electorate was 121,000. I hate to think of the number now. A great many new houses have been built in Newtownards, Bangor and other parts of North Down. I ask the Government to bring new industries to my constituency.
  My second point concerns roads. I do not know what they are like in North Antrim, but in North Down, which is a tourist area, they are not of a standard which should be acceptable to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary if he were driving round my constituency, either in the Ards Peninsula, across to Hillsborough, or from Hillsborough down to Saintfield. It is a peaceful area, but the people there need money for essential purposes.
  There is a need to help schools and youth clubs, and to provide recreational facilities. I have in the centre of my consituency the Glastry secondary school. It is in the centre of an area which lacks many facilities, and the Government should be ready to spend money on providing a swimming pool, proper playing facilities and a youth club, otherwise young boys and girls can easily get into trouble by going off to towns for entertainment. This must be avoided. The Government have as great a duty to
  416
  spend money in North Down, especially on Glastry secondary school, as they have in Londonderry or the Falls area of Belfast.
  I end by joining my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North in condemning the strike which has just started. I condemned it yesterday afternoon. It is a strike apparently without any real motive. People are striking against measures taken by the Government to maintain law and order. It is damaging to Northern Ireland, and I hope that not many people will respond to the strike call.
  1.3 a.m.
  Mr. Peter Mills: This has been a wide-ranging debate, but a very important one. I must emphasise what I have said already. This is a routine and technical order. It is one of a long series of similar measures, the last one being in 1971. I understand that the commission has examined it, and passed it. It raises the statutory limits, but it does not approve them. That is the important point.
  I do not wish to be rude, but many hon. Members have raised matters which are not for this order. They are interesting and important details which will come out in our forthcoming debate on the Estimates, which I understand is to come later. Although hon. Members are right to raise these points because they are important to their constituencies and to Northern Ireland, many of them are for that future debate. This order simply raises the statutory limits.
  The hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) asked for a breakdown of these figures. This, again, is a matter for a further debate, but I can assure him that there will be grants for development, unemployment relief, civic improvement, public cleansing, amenity schemes and capital expenditure on public services, agricultural colleges and civil servants' accommodation, police and other buildings. Industrial development is very important, to deal with the unemployment problem in Northern Ireland. This is concerned with factory building grants and loans. We can go into this in more detail later. The national loan sanction, raised from £400 million to £450 million, is a major source of borrowing by local authorities and other public bodies. It is very important that they should not be starved of the ability to borrow more.

  417
  This is the reason for raising the limits. The hon. Member and others have spoken of the need to raise the figure for Northern Ireland. I do not think I ought to go into that tonight. It is extremely difficult to come to a firm figure, but figures mentioned tonight are not in addition to what has already been set.
  Mention has been made of the problem of electricity supply. There is to be an interim period between now and when the new electricity service comes into operation. Until then there is to be ability to make further loans. The Ulster Land Funds deals with capital sums for the Ulster Museum, the Ulster Folk Museum and the National Trust. This should answer many of the questions which hon. Members have asked.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) asked two questions which, although I hardly dare say so, I think could hardly be in order in this debate. They referred to specific generating sets in his constituency. They are very important to his constituency and I am certain that in the debate on the Estimates those important points could be raised again. If lie wishes to have a fairly quick reply and would like to see me after the debate, I shall see whether we can get some answers for him.
  The Ulster Land Fund cannot be earmarked for specific projects. It is in the nature of a precaution against future needs of the museums, for which I am sure hon. Members will press, and those needs will be dealt with. The section about companies' fees is to harmonise and bring them into line. There has not been an increase in them for some time. We have the problem of the freeze at the moment and they cannot be increased yet, but if my hon. Friend looks at the draft order he will see that Parliament has to say yes or no to this. I regret to have to tell him that £75 million is not allocated to the Northern Ireland Finance Corporation and the corporation will not be helped by that amount. He also referred to damage caused in Northern Ireland by the situation there and extension of compensation. These points will be noted by my hon. Friend concerned with these matters. They are important, because I have had brought to my attention by various people the prob-
  418
  lems of this compensation and the delays involved.
  The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) raised many important points, particularly about derelict land amenity schemes. I can assure him that the Government take this very seriously. If I may pull his leg a little for a moment, he has not been in touch with me as he sometimes is about the special problems in his constituency. Other hon. Members have been to me and I have been able to help a little in matters concerning drainage, flooding and so on. We mean to help in this way not only Northern Ireland generally but the unemployment situation there. This is helping Northern Ireland both in the future and at the present.
  The hon. Member for Antrim, North mentioned the problem of police stations. In my fairly extensive travels around Northern Ireland it has seemed to me that police stations are not liked very much by some people. This is one of the reasons why they are in their present state. There are so many other urgent problems to be dealt with, particularly the new factories and the employment position, but we must not neglect these police stations or let them deteriorate further. I am sure that my noble Friend in another place will take careful note of what has been said, particularly about Larne station, which seems to be in a deplorable state.
  The hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) dwelt on several important matters relating to money and how it is to be spent. These were points for a future debate on the Estimates. This order sets the limits and there is much to be decided before it actually comes into effect. I commend it to the House. If there are any points on this or the two previous orders with which I have not dealt I will write to hon. Members.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Financial Provisions (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.

  NORTHERN IRELAND (FINANCE)
    ADJOURNMENT
    Motion made, and question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Gray.]

  MID-HANTS RAILWAY LINE
  1.13 a.m.
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: I am glad to have the chance to ventilate the problem of the future of the Mid-Hants railway. First may I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the Minister, my colleagues and the staff of the House for keeping them up any later at this time of night. It would not be necessary to discuss this or any other matters at dead of night if only the House would modernise its procedures by limiting the length of speeches. Unless this is done the House of Commons, instead of being the forum of the nation's affairs, will increasingly become obsolete, or to use a metaphor which will at least get me back into order—it will become like a derelict railway train on a siding, while the main line of opinion-forming is carried out by the television companies.
  To get back to the Mid-Hants railway, this little line, popularly known as "the Watercress Line"—16 miles of it—has been running for about 120 years, until the day before yesterday. It now lies silent and still.
  I do not quarrel with the procedure by which the decision to close was reached. The Minister will know there was a notice of closure about five years ago and that in 1968 there was a public hearing in Alresford by the Transport Users Consultative Committee, at which I said that people in the area "wanted to keep their railway and wanted to use it". The committee eventually reported that the closing of the railway would involve hardship for the present users.
  In 1969 I initiated another Adjournment debate, again late at night, on the future of the line, but after all the processes had been gone through, in August 1971 the closure was formally authorised.
  Since 1971 there have been various appeals and inquiries, all centred on the problem of alternative bus services. Now the line is closed, and I do not complain about the procedure, nor indeed about the decision. To be fair to the Minister, there is a genuine dilemma. To close the railway will cause inconvenience to many users and hardship for some. But equally it is difficult to justify a continuation of any service if it is losing a great deal of money year after year.
  420
  There are three points I wish to make to Minister. First, discussion has centred on how much the line has been losing, for it is agreed it has been losing money. At the eleventh hour the local authorities in the area offered a subsidy of about £55,000 to keep the line running temporarily, but British Rail stuck to its figure based on the "Cooper formula" of £100,000 a year. I regard the Cooper formula as unrealistic, and rigid observance of it may lead to wrong decisions being taken. It is too late to go into the arguments tonight, but I should like to throw some doubt on the validity of the Cooper formula.
  Secondly, I wish to question whether the long delay of at least five years to go through the procedure has been justified. The degree of participation—participation is the "in" word in the Department of the Environment—may have become obsessive. Perhaps we would do better to observe Lord Salisbury's famous remark that the time comes when any decision, even a wrong decision, is better than no decision. The total loss to public funds would have been less had the time to take this decision, for better or for worse, been shorter.
  Thirdly, these difficult decisions must be taken objectively and not emotionally. I assure the Minister that I am not seeking to bring any emotional factors to bear, nor would I expect any sensible person to do so.
  Let us look at the new situation which now arises. The situation today is that a consortium of a private company and the local authorities in the area is being formed. This consortium will be known as the Mid-Hants Railway Limited. This is the same name as the original company which built the line in Queen Victoria's reign, when it became part of the L & SWR. This consortium plans to operate the existing track from Alton via Medstead, Four Marks, Ropley, Alresford, Itchen Abbas, a new halt at Springvale and to Winchester Junction which will be an interchange station with British Railways' main line.
  The authorities involved are the Hants County Council, Winchester City Council, Winchester Rural District Council, Alton Urban District Council and the Hampshire Association of Parish Councils. Their efforts have been co-ordinated by Mr. John Taylor, the Town Clerk of the

  421
  Winchester Rural District Council, who has become known as "Mr. Railway". This consortium plans to run a diesel car service on weekdays for the travelling public and also, probably, to run steam trains on holidays and Sundays for railway enthusiasts and as a tourist attraction to gather additional revenue.
  Such lines have been run successfully in other places, like the Bluebell line, the Dart Valley railway and, I think, the Severn Valley line.
  I come to the essential things that I want the Minister to do. There are eight.
  First, I want him to encourage the concept of a consortium between private interests and public money. This is an interesting idea, which may have a much wider application than just to railways.
  Secondly, I ask him to expedite the necessary light railways order. I understand that in the past these have taken up to 12 months to obtain. Surely it should be possible to cut the time drastically? It would also be helpful if the Minister's chief inspector could be asked to allow speeds above 25 mph—the normal limit for light railways—say, up to the 40 mph which British Rail services have been using on the same track.
  Thirdly, I should like him to look favourably at a development grant under the Transport Act for an interchange station at Winchester Junction for four coach trains—not for eight coaches The trains cannot run on British Rail's main track, and a little interchange station is needed there.
  Fourthly, will the Minister give a general direction to British Rail not to dispose of track for the time being? He has been kind enough to write to me to explain that the disposal of track is a matter for BR and not for him: but the new development is that the local authorities may be willing to pay interest charges to BR on the value of track for the time being.
  Fifthly, I ask the Minister not to give approval for the disposal of the formation—the technical term, which really means "land"—until alternative bus services have proved satisfactory over at least 12 months' experience—winter and summer.
  Miss J. M. Quennell: Hear, hear—
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: I am glad of my hon. Friend's support. I have had, and I am sure my hon. Friends have had, many complaints already about this and the Minister should recall that the TUC said at the inquiry that there would be hardship.
  My sixth point is that the Secretary of State should exercise his overall co-ordinating functions so that the line of the M3 motorway—which, by coincidence, he announced today—will not cut the line of formation of the railway. This is of tremendous importance, because it is unlikely that the railway could be viable if it did not connect Alton with Winchester Junction. If it were to be a line only from Alton to Alresford it would not be viable at all, so there must be a way over or under the M3 for the railway.
  The seventh and perhaps the most important point is to ask the Minister to take a long view, to realise that this is an area of rapid growth of population and to understand that the traffic problems of Winchester make bus services a questionable alternative.
  Eighthly and last, I put it to the Minister that it should be possible to revolutionise this line in an imaginative way, to make it a test case for a passenger transport system connecting the new Solent City complex with its hinterland. Here is an opportunity for the Minister to do something imaginative. Failing this, I ask him to look favourably and benevolently on the combined efforts of this local consortium and to issue a message of encouragement to it tonight.
  I end by saying "The line is dead, long live the line".
  1.25 a.m.
  Miss J. M. Quennell: I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) on his initiative in obtaining this brief period of parliamentary time to discuss a matter which is of pressing importance to his and my constituents.
  Alton possesses several local newspapers. One of the most moderate is the Alton Herald which, on 2nd February, reported that
  "the Secretary of State responsible stipulated that the closure should be subject to provision of a 'satisfactory' alternative bus service."

  423
  The "satisfactory" nature of the alternative or substitute service has led to local anger and disappointment. As the newspaper put it:
  "Local opinion is beginning to use such words as 'misrepresentation' and to suggest that while the Government Department which has made the final decision has no doubt acted completely within its legal powers in its interpretation and decision, it might well have attracted the attention of the Trade Descriptions Act had it been an ordinary commercial organisation."
  That is a fair criticism of the way in which this local issue has been handled. The train service at weekends is such an unsatisfactory substitute that on Sundays it is impossible to get to Alton until 1 o'clock or to leave Alton until 11 o'clock. That is the public transport that is available. What prospect is there of people who do not own a motor car being able to go down to the coast or to visit their families?
  I strongly urge my hon. Friends to take note of the arguments advanced by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester. I call on them to support the consortium and, above all—although they may not have the legal means to do so, we know they have the influence—to leave the track alone until we have got something running on it of a mixed nature, such as advocated by the consortium.
  1.27 a.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Reginald Eyre): I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) for raising this matter, and I have carefully noted the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell).
  The debate gives me the opportunity to outline to the House not only the long and tangled history of this closure proposal but also the discussions and negotiations which have taken place over the last few days.
  Hon. Members—in particular, I am afraid, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester and my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield—will be only too aware that the Railways Board withdrew the Alton to Winchester rail passenger service on 5th February. The service was originally proposed for closure in 1967. The Secretary of State
  424
  gave his consent to closure, subject to the provision of specified replacement bus services, in August 1971.
  The local bus operators had to apply for a variation to their existing licences which would enable them to operate the rail replacement bus services. The traffic commissioners granted this variation despite objections from several authorities. The local authorities appealed against the commissioners' decision. The Secretary of State dismissed the appeal in late November 1972. So rather more than a year had already elapsed since the closure decision.
  The Railways Board was then free to withdraw the rail service as soon as the replacement buses were in operation. The local authorities were notified of the proposed date of withdrawal—5th February 1973—on 21st December.
  My hon. and gallant Friend asked about the costs and earnings of the line. This service's costs were far in excess of its earnings. In 1970 total costs were £135,000 a year, and earnings were £31,000. This left a gap—or rather a gulf—of £104,000. So, if the service had been reprieved, the general taxpayer would have had to pick up a six-figure bill—much more than the rail users were paying in fares—and the gap between costs and earnings was expected to continue to widen in the longer term, even after allowing for optimistic assumptions of traffic growth, which would have related to the growth of population to which my hon. and gallant Friend referred.
  Not all of these costs would have been saved after closure. I have noted my hon. and gallant Friend's comments about the Cooper formula. Nevertheless, closure was expected to produce a medium-term saving—just in running costs—of £110,000 a year. This is the ordinary expenditure that is needed to keep the service going. But it was estimated at the time by British Rail that to keep the Alton-Winchester service open would have meant paying out an extra £245,000 for necessary renewals—for example, replacing track—over the next four years.
  It was with these figures in mind, as well as the Transport Users' Consultative Committee's report, that the Secretary of State decided that the continuation of the service was no longer justified.

  425
  The local authorities first showed interest in supporting this service well before the closure decision was announced. Winchester Rural District Council offered to contribute up to £10,000 towards a new halt at King's Worthy, and Alton Urban District Council a similar sum towards the very heavy capital costs of electrification. But neither of these offers related directly to the question whether the service should remain or not.
  The closure decision was announced in August 1971. The local authorities held informal discussions with the Railways Board, and in August 1972—a year after the decision—informed my Department that they were interested in the possibility of contributing to the continuation of the railway service. They wanted to know what contribution might be forthcoming from the central Government. The Department made it quite clear, from the outset, that it would be prepared to meet those costs which would, in the event of closure, be reallocated to other grant-aided services.
  For example, Winchester station is remaining open; my Department will have to pay towards its upkeep anyway, under other grants towards passenger services, and the proposition was that therefore the Department would not look to the local authorities to pay the contribution which the Alton-Wincester service should make to these costs. We also said that if the authorities proposed some arrangement involving a really substantial contribution towards the service's costs the Department would consider it.
  On 29th January, a week before the service was due to be withdrawn, the local authorities eventually made to British Railways a firm offer of financial support—some £58,000 over a year. However, assuming a contribution from my Department on the lines I have mentioned—amounting to roughly £20,000—this would still leave a shortfall of some £40,000 a year between the authorities' offer and the service's operating deficit.
  This would be enough to keep the line running for only a matter of months, and the British Railways Board very understandably wanted a more lasting arrangement than that. It also wanted to be sure that if unexpectedly heavy capital expenditure were required—for example, for safety reasons—it would not itself have to bear the cost. So at the end of
  426
  last week there was a gap between what the local authorities were able to offer and what the board felt able to accept.
  I realise that there were hopes that a local group of businessmen would be able to guarantee the remaining amount; this was the consortium to which my hon. and gallant Friend referred. I did not know that it was operating in conjunction with the local authorities. There was a plan that this group would apply for a light railway order, take the line over and run it as a light railway. But last week no one was prepared to promise or under write the £40,000, so the British Railways Board was unable to regard the offer as representing a sufficient guarantee against loss on this line for it to accept it. If this consortium, in conjunction with the local authorities, can come forward with sufficiently firm proposals, they will be considered seriously, but I stress that it is necessary for action to be taken very expeditiously, for reasons that I will come to.
  My hon. and gallant Friend asked a number of questions about which he had not told me earlier. I have tried to respond in suitably cautious terms to his first point. His next point was about expedition of a light railway order and a grant for an interchange station. Again, I notice a request for the use of public money. Those matters would depend on the main question, where we must make demands on the consortium and the local authority to see whether they are prepared to produce enough money to make good the severe cost to public funds of the continuation of the railway line.
  My hon. and gallant Friend asked me also to undertake that there would be delay in the disposal of the track equipment. I shall come to that in a minute.
  We might be asked why we did not postpone the closure. Consent to the closure was give 18 months ago. At that time my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State decided that its continuation—at substantial cost to the taxpayer—was not justified, either on social or economic grounds. The line was, of course, supported by the Exchequer all last year, while the provision of replacement bus services was being thrashed out. Those interested have had 18 months to get together, collect the financial backing they need and come to terms with British

  427
  Rail. My hon. and gallant Friend must remember that when he asks for further time for consideration. It could be only very limited. We did not feel that postponing the closure by a few months was likely to enable them to do so. On that basis, to postpone the withdrawal would, in addition to further cost to the taxpayer, have caused a great deal of bother and confusion to travellers, to the bus company, and so on, all to no avail.
  The Railways Board is free to remove the track and signalling equipment and station structures now that all rail services have ceased. If the local authorities want them to be retained, they are free to make a suitable financial arrangement with the board, but because of the threat of vandalism negotiations would have to be completed reasonably quickly. Again, I stress the need for urgency. The railway formation and station sites, the land itself, cannot be disposed of by the board without my right hon. Friend's agreement.
  My hon. and gallant Friend asked about preserving the formation with reference to the line of the M3 motorway. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries announced earlier today the route for the M3 between Popham and Compton. It crosses the railway line between Alton and Winchester. But today's announcement relates only to the line of the road, not to whether it crosses over or under the railway formation, or intersects with it at grade. Were the railway line to be working when the M3 is constructed, there need be no physical impediment to the continuation of rail services. If
  428
  the line were closed, however, it could well be extravagant to bridge the line—and I cannot promise that in those circumstances the formation will not be interrupted.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield also referred to the replacement bus services. The services were carefully designed for replacement purposes, and were approved by the traffic commissioners. I hope that the difficulties to which my hon. Friend referred are only teething problems and that the bus replacement services will be successful—that is, I hope that the Hampshire public will support them.
  It would be wrong for me to hold out any hopes for the restoration of railway services on the line. It is, of course, still open to anyone to make an arrangement with British Railways to run services on it or to leave the track in position. But these arrangements are bound to be expensive. If people have not been able over the past 18 months to reach such an arrangement, it gives rise to doubt whether there is a practical possibility that they will be able to meet these substantial sums.
  It is for that reason that I have to tell my hon. and gallant Friend that, helpful as my right hon. Friend wishes to be, it would be for only a matter of days that he could permit consideration of the business aspect to which my hon. and gallant Friend has referred.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes to Two o'clock.